The Ancient Cave
by blkdrgn
Summary: /Final chapter up!/ Artea summons Maxim and Selan's companions to Gruberick, where rumor tells of the Cup of Wishes. Hidden in the Ancient Cave, the cup can restore the dead to life.
1. Default Chapter

Chapter One: Winged News

One year passed in peaceful bliss following the sacrifice of Maxim and Selan.  Their five companions returned to their hometowns, and the world set about rebuilding and renewing itself after the near-disaster of Doom Island.

                Tia had now remained in Elcid for her entire childhood and a majority of her adult life.  Each day dragged by, a carbon copy of the one that had gone before.  Routines, even ones she had once enjoyed, seemed tedious.  For hours at a stretch while her weapons shop remained deserted, she would dream of traveling across the beautiful untamed continent with her childhood friend, Maxim.  Yes, in those days she had feared for both his safety and for her own.  Yet with that danger, came a guarantee of adventure and continual excitement.  Remembering, always remembering, Tia took to roaming the outskirts of the town when the business hours had ended, looking always to the horizon to Parcelyte and beyond.  "Oh Maxim," she would whisper.

                After one such night of horizon gazing and twilight dream shadows, Tia awoke to a horrific cacophony.  It sounded as if a naughty boy was shaking a tree filled with nesting birds and making their eggs splatter onto the street.  She put on a robe and crossed the room to open the shutters.  Peering out, she gasped in surprise.  A man she had never before seen stood next to her house.  A horse and cart she assumed to be his blocked half of the street.  Inside the cart almost a hundred birds in crates fumed at the jostling of their abrupt halt.  The man wore a beaten straw hat and faded overalls.  His grubby feet looked as if he hadn't washed them in a year.  He noticed Tia peeping at him, smiled, and tipped his hat.  "G'morning, Lady," he said.  A weed poked out of the corner of his grin.  

                "Good morning," Tia said, quite taken aback.

                "Don't mind the birds," the man said.  "They'll be cooing again once I let them out.  It's been a long journey."

                "What are the birds for?" Tia asked, curious.  

                "Why Lady," the bird keeper exclaimed.  "Haven't you ever heard of carrier pigeons?"

Tia replied with a confused, blank stare.

"They carry mail by air…much faster 'n mules 'n such."

Suddenly Tia's heart lightened.  This was just the thing to satisfy her longing for excitement. 

"Tia!" her friend, Ami, who was passing by, called out.  "What are you doing still in bed?  You're going to be late to open the shop!"

Tia laughed.  "Oh please, Ami!  No one buys weapons anymore…"  For a minute she thought with a pang of Maxim, the last monster hunter in the town.  

"I wouldn't be so sure, Lady," the man said.  "If your town's big enough for carrier pigeons, then you might attract a few monster hunters yet."

"Who is this guy?" Ami asked Tia.

The bird keeper swept off his hat with a flourish.  "The name's Thomas.  Call me Thom for short."

Tia smiled at Thom's antics.  Ami, meanwhile, let herself into the weapons shop.

"I best be on my way," Thom said.  "Now that I know where I'm settin' up shop."

"Where will you be?" Tia asked.  

"Jus' next to the shrine.  A little on the outskirts of town so the birds can roost if they want to."  Thom clambered back into his cart, and the horse plodded away.

Tia closed her shutters and hurriedly dressed.  When she at last entered the weapons shop, Ami was seated, drumming her knuckles on the table.  "Think you took long enough, Tia?" her friend joked.  

"Not that there are any customers," Tia sighed.

"That's what I came over to talk about.  Times are changing, Tia."  Ami's serious eyes fixed on Tia.  "If we don't change with them, we might well go out of business."

Tia frowned.  "The same thought has occurred to me," she admitted reluctantly.

"I have an idea, though," Ami said.  "We can continue to sell weapons.  However, in addition, we can sell regular cutlery.  Since I can cook really well, I thought we might sell some of my best dishes as well."

Tia nodded, thinking wryly of her own attempts to cook.  "It does sound like a good idea," she said.  "This way, the shop will be a joint venture too.  I'll have a sign made right away."

Ami smiled broadly.  "Just you wait, Tia!  Your whole house is going to smell good once I get my cooking in here."

{***}

Since business was still negligible that day, Tia and Ami decided to close the weapons shop turned restaurant and open again tomorrow.  Tia waved goodbye to her friend.  After Ami left, she noticed a trail of white-gray feathers strewn across the road.  _Thom's trail, _she thought.  She followed the path as it wound through the streets, eventually passing Elcid's shrine.  Just beyond the building, Thom was unloading his crates.

"H'lo there, Lady," Thom said by way of greeting.

Tia giggled.  "You don't have to call me 'Lady'," she said.  "Just Tia will do."

"Tia…"  Thom paused in his work.  "What a pretty name.  But so sad.  It makes me think of tear."

"They used to call me 'tear' when I was little," Tia remembered.  "Because I cried all the time."

"You'll find friends among these birds, then," Thom stated.  "They always sound like they're sad about something."  As if it could understand him, one of the birds cooed mournfully.

"How far can they carry letters?" Tia asked.

"Anywhere in the world, Lady," Thom declared with a wave of his hand.  "Yeh don't have any lazy pigeons in my coop.  I reckon they know more about the world than most the people who give 'em letters," he said proudly.

_Anywhere in the world…  _Tia's thoughts were suddenly far away, once more drifting to the horizon.

{***}

                The pigeon coop quickly became the talk of Elcid.  Whenever people stopped to gawk, Thom would regale them with tales of the pigeons' travels.  He seemed to know each one by name and by sight, something difficult since they all looked the same.  Tia found that since her weapons shop had become a restaurant, she had less and less to do with her own business, even though she was listed as the primary owner.  As the summer days wore on, she spent more and more time helping Thom with his booming business.  Sometimes they sat beneath the shade of the trees sipping iced tea and talking.  Thom told tales of far-off cities where bigger birds carried small packages.  "I hear the port cities are annoyed with those birds," Thom said.  "And who wouldn't be?  They're messing up shipping.  Those Narcysus folk especially are gonna have themselves a good stew if they hear about the dragons that can move a whole cargo in half the time as a ship.  The air is the new sea, Tia!"

                Late one afternoon, Tia went to see Thom as she always did.  He squinted at her and smiled.  "I've been waitin' for yeh.  Yeh got a letter."  He held out a crisp envelope to her.

                "I did?" Tia eagerly read the spiraling script that spelled out her name.  Yet who was it from?  she wondered as she cracked the slender seal.  She settled down into the shade of the pines to read the enclosed letter.

                _Greetings, Tia!_

_                  I hope that this letter finds you in good health and spirits.  It is I, Artea, writing from Gruberick.  It has been a year since Maxim and Selan fell with __Doom__Island__.  I have urgent cause to reunite with the other four companions…  This news I cannot disclose in this letter.  I implore you to forgive this secrecy and to hasten to Gruberick.  Here I hope to gather Maxim and Selan's remaining companions and address the aforementioned matter no later than mid-summer's eve._

_Yours sincerely, _

_ Artea_

                Tia felt a familiar wave of sadness welling up inside of her.  Simultaneously she felt the old urge to repress it.  She bit her lip as hard as she could.  Memories of Maxim brought her pain like nothing else did.  And yet, this letter, this summons, was the perfect excuse to leave Elcid and chase the horizon.  Torn, she stared at the letter for a long time in silence.  

Thom raised an eyebrow.  "Feeling some old wanderlust, eh?"

"Yes," Tia replied.  _How ironic, she thought.  Her journey with Maxim had been the cause of this terrible hurt within her…and now yet another journey called to her…a journey of reunion with his old friends.  __Even now, cut off from Maxim by the chasm of mortality and immortality…  Yet his pull on me from beyond the grave is as compelling as ever._

She made her decision as the first streaks of red bled through the golden sky.

{**********************************************************************************************************}

I do not own Lufia or any of its characters.  This work is fandom only.  Please don't sue me.


	2. The Cup of Wishes

Chapter Two:  The Cup of Wishes

                Sunset descended on the port town of Gruberick, turning the water to gold and the sky to crimson.  Shadows lengthened in the pubs and on the streets.  The town quieted, and the sea murmured its hushed melody.  Candles appeared in windows, ghostly reminders of the coming night.  And still, Artea lingered at the table, waiting.  Tonight was the last night, midsummer's eve, and still no one had arrived yet.  He continued to stare languidly at the patterns of dust in the pub's windows, watching in vain for a boat or a traveler.  Nothing.  No one.  The elf sighed and drained his tankard of cider.   

                Suddenly he was able to make out several figures walking the streets.  He could tell immediately that they were not sailors.  They were warriors by their swagger.  And from the looks of things, they were arguing.  Dekar and Guy, Artea guessed.  His sharp ears caught the bell-tinkle of a warp spell.  _Lexus Shaia.  The elf remained in the darkness.  That made three of the four.  Where was Tia?  He wondered if there was some omen latent in the fact that Maxim's first traveling companion was the last to arrive.  The door to the pub swung open and smashed into the wall.  "Oops," Dekar said.  He smirked at Guy, baiting the blonde warrior.  "Heh heh.  Don't know my own strength I guess."_

                "Artea!" Guy greeted him, choosing to ignore the brawny man.  "How have you been?  What have you been doing all this time?"

                "You'll find out soon enough," Artea replied.  The sun was sinking into the west.  Was Tia going to come?  

                "I must say, you sure picked a quiet place to have a party.  Maybe you should let me help you pick the city next time.  I know lots of places where you can have a wild time!" Guy said.

                Dekar rolled his eyes.  "Yeah, I bet.  You probably get tired at old ladies' knitting parties!"

                "_What_?" Guy seethed.  "Well, your hair looks like you have old ladies as your styling consultants!"

                Dekar smoothed out his pineapple-shaped spikes of hair protectively.  "At least I don't look like the Jack of cards turned farmer!"

                Lexus rolled his eyes as he entered the pub.  "I could hear them at the waterfront," he said to Artea.

                "Just like old times," Artea said with a smile that felt forced.  Suddenly he heard another crystalline chime, a warp spell.  "Tia," he whispered.  Sure enough, it was Tia, dressed in rose pink.

                "Artea," Tia acknowledged him formally.  The elf inclined his head to her.  Plainly she felt uncomfortable.  Nonetheless, he could waste no more time.  Artea cleared his throat for silence.  "I regret that I must be so brisk on what many of you may have perceived as an occasion for celebration.  However, we are, as my people say, on the threshold of opportunity."

                "Though we do not realize it," Guy muttered.

                The other four companions seated themselves at the round table with Artea.

"After Doom Island fell, I began once again to wander the world.  The nature of my journeys is unimportant.  Suffice to say, I heard rumors from numerous treasure hunters of this town and the cave to the north of it."

                "The Ancient Cave," Dekar whispered.  "I have always wanted to explore it."

                "In the cave," Artea continued, "is a treasure with power beyond any we here possess."

                "That's saying a lot!" Guy interjected.

                "What is it?" Tia asked.

                Candlelight deepened the shadows and distorted shapes all about the pub.  Though it was impossible, the dimness seemed to alter even Artea's voice.  He sounded wearier, as if the burden of his years had at last come to rest on him.  "It is called the Cup of Wishes.  It is an ancient magical artifact that was itself legend when my people were young.  Within it lies the magic of three wishes…  But there is more…  The power of the cup even transcends the chasm of the grave."

                Silence fell, even over Guy and Dekar. 

Finally Lexus spoke.  "Artea…  Don't your people disapprove of resurrection of the dead?"

"This is outside of their concern," Artea answered tersely, his jaw tight.

"I think Jeros has been without his parents for long enough," Guy murmured.

"They never did get to live in the world they saved," Artea said.  "I intend to go after the cup and use it to restore their life.  Will you come with me?"

"Sure thing," Guy said.  "You're going to need someone strong to watch your back down there!"

"Count me in too!"  Dekar sprang to his feet.  "I've always wanted to test my mettle against that cave!"

"Betcha I'll last longer than you will!" Guy piped up.

"Will not!"

"Will too!"

"You'll need some brains on this expedition, Artea.  I would be happy to come with you," Lexus said once Dekar and Guy ran out of breath.

Artea smiled at them.  "Thank you, everyone.  What about you, Tia?  Will you undertake this task with us?"

Tia met the elf's eyes as coolly as she had when Maxim had tried to send her back to Elcid at the start of their journey.  "You have three people to come with you already," she remarked.  "If I come-"

"That won't be a problem," Artea interrupted.  "Actually I had hoped to have two parties to enter the Cave."

"Why's that?" Guy asked, trying to free himself from Dekar's mock chokehold.

"Rumor has it that the cave changes shape.  They have yet to figure out why." Artea said.

"How interesting," Lexus whispered to himself.

"If two parties go in, it's twice as likely that at least one of them will reach the bottom," Artea concluded.

"Wait a minute!" Dekar exclaimed, dropping Guy to the floor.  "Why _wouldn't_ a party reach the bottom?"

"A number of reasons, actually."  Artea's eyes were cavernous as he listed the sinister possibilities.  "The party could die in the cave.  It's happened countless times before.  Or, you could end up in one of those cave shapes that don't provide stairs to the very bottom level.  Without Providence, you would have no hope of escaping."

"So what?" Dekar scoffed.  "Climb the stairs back up, and beg them to let you out."

"Oh, did I forget to mention it?" 

"Mention what?" Tia ventured hesitantly.

"There are usually stairs _down_ in the Ancient Cave," Artea said.  "However, there are never stairs up."

Dekar and Guy glanced at one another, both pale beneath their tans.  Lexus scrawled furious notes on a pad of paper he had procured from his pocket.  Tia shivered.  What were they getting themselves into?


	3. Separation

Chapter Three:  Separation 

                Dawn upon Gruberick shone dull silver, the hue of a blade long unused.  Warm wind whipped across the streets like the breath of a panting beast.  By afternoon the ocean roiled, and every bird on the docks shouted tidings of the coming storm.

                "How fitting that it would be such nasty weather today," Guy remarked as they left the inn.  "Seeing as we'll be spending about a week indoors.  Do to us what you will!" he challenged the sky.

                "Guy," Artea groaned.  "People are staring."

                Guy looked around sheepishly.  "Oops.  Sorry."  He hunched into his armor.  Some of the 'stares' he was receiving were deteriorating into glares.  The party continued onward to the outskirts of town.  No one said very much.  The night before, most of the practical prospects of the adventure had eluded them.  Now, however, everyone had to make peace with the fact that they would not feel sun or wind on their faces for quite some time.  

Just on the outskirts of town, Lexis approached Artea.  "Artea," he said.  "Have you given any thought as to how you will divide the party?"

Artea started as if from deep, moody reflection.  "No, actually."

"Care for some advice?"

The elf laughed – it sounded forced – and nodded.  "Sure thing."

"You should travel with Guy.  Swords and sorcery together can cope with pretty much anything."  The elf and the scientist had fallen behind the other party members.  Dekar and Guy were carrying on at the front of the line, while Tia remained in the very back, her head bowed.

"Good idea," Artea said.  "So that would leave you with Dekar and Tia."

"So I'm the spare part…" Tia muttered just so Artea could hear her.  

"Thanks, Lexis," Artea said.  "You should wait until dawn to enter the cave.  That's when its shape changes."

Lexis nodded in agreement.  "Entering the same cave would defeat the purpose of separating parties.  Still…"  He looked to the overhanging storm clouds and said nothing more.

"Not really of any use to anyone…  I'm just an extra limb on something that's already complete.  In a word, overkill…"  Tia sighed.

Busy thinking, the elf frowned and soon fell behind even Tia.  He did not know much about the young woman other than her name and where she lived after consulting with Guy.  It amounted to just enough knowledge to send her a summons by carrier pigeon.  Nonetheless, her melancholy worried him.  Had she come without wanting to?  Hers was a delicate beauty, rather than that unmistakable strength that characterized warrior women like Selan.  Curious now, the elf caught up to her.

"How did you know Maxim, Tia?" the elf asked.  "I never did get a chance to ask you…I feel as if we are strangers."

Tia bit her lip.  "He was my childhood friend.  I was in love with him."  She held her head high though speaking the words obviously pained her.  "When the ball of light appeared, he left Elcid for good.  I didn't want him to leave me, however.  So…I followed him."

Artea flushed ever so slightly.  He had not meant to pry, after all.

"I found that his world – made up of the battles he fought - was no more a part of me than the elven one.  In fact, it frightened me, probably more than anything ever has!  But I continued to lie to myself.  'He'll want to go home soon,' I always said.  Then he met Selan…"  

Her words would move a stone to tears, Artea reflected.  Yet no tears shone on her cheeks.  It was then that the elf realized that Tia's strength was internal, intangible, perhaps, but as real as Selan's power.  "And you left then?"

"Yes."

"Why then did you come with us?" Artea was about to ask.  However they had already reached the site of the Ancient Cave.  Guy, Dekar, and Lexis had paused before the entrance.

"We stand together on the threshold," Artea said to them all.  "May we meet again at the bottom."  With those words of parting, the elf entered the shade of the cave.  Guy punched Dekar on the shoulder and followed the elf.

"Let's head back to town," Lexis said.  "Artea told me last night that the cave changes shapes with the dawn."

"_Ugh!" Dekar groaned.  "That means we'll surely get caught in that storm Guy called down!"_

"You know, that simply isn't scientifically possible," Lexis said.  "What superstitious nonsense."

"Power like the Sinistrels isn't quite explained by science either, is it?" Dekar challenged him.

"Actually I'm writing a book about that…" Lexis trailed off.  "Would you like me to show you my notes?"  He reached into his travel bag and withdrew an enormous tome

Tia turned from Dekar and Lexis, feeling almost compelled as if by enchantment to look at the cave.  No grass grew around its opening, giving it the appearance of a freshly-hollowed out tomb.  Strings of darkness crept out of the cave, filling the storm-sweetened air with the moldering odor of decay.  Silver lightning flashed at sea.  The wind swirled about them.  Tia felt hatred and fear for the cave well inside of her.  Above her the clouds burst.  Torrents of rain lashed Lexis, Dekar, and Tia.

"My notes!" Lexis gasped.  He slammed the tome shut and shoved it into his bag.  Hunched over, the scientist made for the entry of the cave.  "Come on!" he called to Tia and Dekar.  "We shouldn't try to find our way back to Gruberick in this!"

Dekar followed.  Then, noticing that Tia had remained behind in the shrieking wind, he turned.  "Into the cave!" Dekar yelled.  He grabbed Tia's wrist.  She did not resist his pull.  Nonetheless, a strange light shone in her eyes, a gleam that hinted if she could have, she would have.

Smoke that stung their eyes filled the inside the cave.  Torches flickered in each corner.  Nonetheless, the illumination they provided only made the shadows more glossy and vibrant.  Like a bier, a great counter rose in the center of the cave floor; the old man who stood behind it could have been the shriveled corpse from atop it.

"Welcome, honored guests," he rasped in a voice as dry as sand.  "Will you be entering?"

"Not today," Lexis said.  "The storm drove us to seek shelter here.  Tomorrow we will venture inside."

The old man laughed for so long at this seemingly trivial fact that Tia began to wonder if he was quite mad.  At length, he composed himself and favored the travelers with a skull-like grin.  "Suit yourselves.  You'll be mighty bored, though."

"Quite right," Dekar acknowledged unhappily.  He surveyed the dim earthen room with a sigh.  After a few minutes he struck up a conversation with one of the guards before the entryway to the cave.  Lexis, meanwhile, began inspecting the water damage to his precious notes.

Tia shuddered.  None but she seemed to notice just how creepy the cave was.  Try as she might, she could not keep from noticing it and dwelling on it.  Worst of all was the odor of decay, like wilted flowers, that crushed the lungs and burned the back of the throat.  

While the old man busied himself with some new customers, Tia noticed a small wooden sign atop the bier.  She came closer to inspect it.  "Enter at your own risk," the crudely carved letters read.  "Please note that upon entering the cave, all weapons, spells, experience, armor, and items you may be carrying will vanish.  I return no gold, no matter how terrible your experience.  I don't know how many rooms there are, and frankly, I don't care.  I have nothing to do with the monsters inside.  Treasures you find inside of blue chests, you may keep with you even after you leave.  Upon entering again, these treasures will stay with you.  Providence available after the twentieth floor.  I do not make missions into the cave to recover missing persons.  Remove all corpses.  Thank you and have a lovely time. ~Management."

For the remainder of the evening, Tia kept close to Lexis and Dekar.  Night added its own darkness to the stinking cave.  Dekar and Lexis soon nodded off.  Unable to sleep, Tia watched the double doors that led out of the inner cave.  They remained shut.  The old man noticed her fascination with that door and said, "No monsters'll come out of there, miss.  Not unless they're smart enough to find Providence themselves."

"Do any travelers _ever_ come out of this cave?" Tia asked.

"Seldom, miss.  Very seldom."  The old man seemed almost gleeful at the prospect.  "Can you smell-" he took a great whiff of the musty cave air, "it, miss?  That's the stink of all the corpses that are rotting below."    

Tia did not sleep at all after that.


	4. The First Floor

Chapter Four: The first floor

                Tia passed the rest of the night uneasily, seated on the cave floor with her back to the wall.  Even when she closed her eyes she could feel the old man – the cave corpse as she thought of him – staring at her.  Finally, when Tia thought that she could stand the cave no longer, Dekar and Lexis roused.  

                "Dawn," Lexis observed with a glance at the door.  Weak sunshine flashed through the curtain of rain outside the cave.

                Dekar rose and stretched.  "Remind me not to sleep with rocks against my back next time.  I don't think I slept a wink."

                "You were snoring loud enough last night," Tia teased him.  Already she felt more cheerful.  Soon they would be leaving this creepy chamber and the cave corpse behind.  "I bet you slept more than you think."

                "Are you ready?" The cave corpse asked Lexis.  "If you are, it will be ninety gold for the three of you to enter."

                "We're ready," Lexis said with a dubious look at the old man.  "I can't believe you charge people for this," he muttered, digging out the money.

                "It's business," the old man stated defensively.  He held out his gnarled hand and snatched the coins.  "Right this way, please."  The cave corpse shambled off to the double doors leading to the heart of the Ancient Cave.  The pale guard at the doors had fallen asleep at his post.  He was leaning partly against the doors and partly against the earthen cave wall.  When the old man roused him, the guard snapped awake.  "Open the door!" the cave corpse hissed.

                Wiping at the smudge on his face, the guard complied in shame-faced silence.

                "How many times have I told you not to just nod off like that?" the old man berated him.

                The guard mumbled something inarticulate under his breath and then said, "Through these doors is a warp tile.  All you need to do is step into it, and you will be transported to the lower halls of the Ancient Cave.  Good luck to you," he said with a bow.

                The room containing the warp tile was too small for the three of them to enter together.  Lexis went first, followed by Dekar.  Before Tia could enter, the cave corpse seized her arm with his skeletal, yellowed fingers.  She gasped in revulsion.  "Beware," he said to her.  "I know you are different from the company you keep."  His sour breath wafted into her face.  "Know this," he hissed.  "This cave recognizes the faint of heart.  Be strong in your resolve, or the cave shall eat you alive!"

                Tia finally succeeded in twisting her arm out of his grip.  The double doors shut behind her once the old man had left the opening.  She leaned against the wall for a moment, recovering her breath.  Her arm was red where he had grabbed her.  The marks burned with cold fire.  Shuddering, she examined the warp tile.  Its surface was a tarnished mirror, a cold gray hue that reflected her face in sinister, dim hues.  Tia took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and stepped into the warp hole.  Chimes rang in her ears; her entire body seemed to vibrate as if it was suspended in wind-tossed water.  When she opened her eyes, she had materialized between Lexis and Dekar.

                "What took you so long?" Dekar asked. 

                "Well, you know…  It's been a while since I've been on an adventure," she said hastily.  "I was a little hesitant to enter."

                Lexis smiled broadly.  "That makes two of us.  Looks like you'll have your work cut out for you, Dekar."

                "No problem," the warrior said.  "I _am_ the strongest man in the world, after all."  He puffed out his chest importantly.

                "Well then, we're in good hands.  Shall we be off?" Lexis said.

                "Let's go that way…"  Tia pointed across the vast expanse marble-white tiles to the doors at the top of the room.

                "OKAY!"  Dekar's eyes were fairly glowing with excitement.  When the party reached the door, Dekar smiled apologetically.  "I would say, 'Ladies first,' Tia.  But...since I really don't know what's behind the door…."

                "Oh get going, Dekar," Lexis interrupted.  "Really, at this rate, Artea and Guy will probably have to wait for us at the bottom of the cave.  And…" he added, "you know how Guy will gloat if he and Artea make it to the bottom first.  He'll think we had trouble or something."

                "I'll show him a thing or two…when we make it to the bottom floor _first_!" Dekar said.  He aimed a kick at the heavy double doors.  They flew open with a cranky creak apiece.

                Tia and Lexis looked at one another and rolled their eyes.  Dekar, meanwhile, bounded into the next room.  "Hey, look, Lexis!  Monsters!"  Tia looked over Lexis's shoulder.  Sure enough, two blobs of blue jelly were oozing at the edges of the room.  "A profound observation, Dekar," Lexis said.  Suddenly Tia felt the burden of the fear that had accumulated since the night before lighten.  She had fought jellies before with Maxim.  

                "They're just babies, though," Dekar scoffed.  "I'm going to leave them so they can get big and strong."

                Lexis coughed.  "Whatever you say, Dekar.  Let's hurry and find the stairs."

                They set off through another door to the left of the one they had entered.  As they traversed the floor, Tia noticed that the "Ancient Cave" was not like a cave at all.  Each floor was meticulously tiled, sometimes in vibrant reds, blues, or green.  Even the acres of white tiles were scrupulously clean, as if some unfortunate person spent hours scrubbing them.  Fastidious pillars rose from the floor to the ceiling, part of a forest of marble.  

Finally they reached the stairs.  Pitch darkness encased the spindly stairwell.  As Dekar clanged to the bottom, the spiral stairs began to sway.  Lexis caught hold of the rusty handrail with a curse.  Tia was almost thrown into the scientist before she could regain her footing.  Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.  To what hell did this horrendous stairwell lead?  However, when she emerged into the light again, the room resembled that of the floor above.  White marble stretched onward for many paces, overshadowed by pillars.

"So it is true," Lexis whispered as Tia rejoined him and Dekar.

"What is?" Dekar asked.

"The stairs lead only downwards…  As we descend, the way upstairs vanishes…"

"_What?" Dekar whirled around.  Where the hazardous stairs had been, like a dark stain bleeding across the white tiles, there was now a wall._

Tia's flesh prickled.  Dekar appeared similarly astonished.  He did not remain stunned for long, however.  Out of the corner of his eye, the warrior spotted several beetles the size of Tia walking along the wall.  "Hey, more monsters!  Those are more my size I think…"

"Dekar wait!" Tia shouted, remembering too late the words of the sign.

"Don't worry about him, Tia," Lexis said.  "He's not being _too_ conceited when he says he's the strongest man in the world."

"No, Lexis, you don't understand!  You didn't read the sign on that old man's counter…"  She grabbed him by the sleeve of his lab coat and dragged him into Dekar's fray.

"Glad you could help," Dekar grunted.  "I know this sounds ridiculous," he said, kicking one of the beetles away from him, "but I seem to have left my sword upstairs."

"_Hey!  Where's my figgoru?" Lexis shouted in dismay.  "Oh well," he muttered, driving his fist into the beetle Dekar had just felled.  Black blood squirted his knuckles.  The scientist grimaced and backed away.  "I must really be out of practice," he said.  "I don't remember mere beetles being this hard to fight."_

"They're not," Tia said frantically.  "The sign on the old man's counter said that all items and experience vanish once you enter this cave."

"WHAT?!" Dekar exclaimed, missing his mark.  The beetle he had targeted scuttled aside clumsily.

"How is that possible?" Lexis gasped.  Sweat dripped from his glasses.  "It just can't be!"

"But the evidence is right in front of you!  Neither of you have your weapons, and these beetles that we _know are weak are making you sweat!" Tia argued._

Dekar sent another beetle hurtling into the wall.  Its shell split with a sickening crack.   The remaining beetle fled to the opposite end of the room.

Dekar wiped his fists on his pants.  Lexis stared at the blood crusting atop his knuckles in disbelief.  "This is so strange," Lexis admitted.  "My whole head is buzzing…like all my mental energy is going into remembering what I forgot."

"Same here," said Dekar, nonetheless retaining his typical vacant stare.

"Tia, are you feeling anything?" Lexis asked.

Tia shook her head.  "Nothing.  I didn't fight, though…  That must be the reason."

"In any case, we can't go on like this," Lexis declared, shaking his hand in an ineffective attempt to get the blood off.  "This can't be sanitary."

"There's a treasure chest over there," Dekar said.  "I'll go see what's inside."

Tia followed him to the chest, which shimmered as if it were made from molten rubies.  Dekar lifted the lid.  "Terrific," he muttered.  "A fry pan."

"Give me that," Tia said.  Dekar raised an eyebrow but gave her the shiny pan.

For the next few minutes, the party traversed long stretches of windowless hallways that wound round and round, and back and forth.  They saw no treasure chests nor did they encounter any monsters.  At length, they reached the second floor stairwell, which was darker than the first.

"It would be really nice to have a light for these places," Lexis grumbled.

"Oh come on," Dekar yelled as he bounded down the skinny steps.  "That just makes it more fun-OWW!"

"Dekar!" Tia shouted.  

"Are you okay?" Lexis called.

Dekar cursed loudly.  Tia forgot her fear that the stairs would snag onto her dress and trip her.  She hurtled down the stairs brandishing her frying pan.  She was nearly at the bottom when the staircase began to tear from the ceiling.  "_Eek_!" Tia screamed.  An enormous buffalo had rammed its head and shoulders into the gap between the stair railings.  Clearly it had tried to charge Dekar as he gallivanted carelessly through the dark.  Dekar saw Tia coming with the fry pan and ducked.  Tia flew over his crouched figure, smashing the fry pan into the buffalo's face.  As the beast struggled, more of the staircase gave way, shrieking and squeaking.  Dekar straightened and swung Tia over the side of the stairs.  Then he jumped over the edge to land unharmed.

"I _need a weapon," Dekar growled under his breath.  He dashed into the lighted chambers beyond the stairs.  _

"Dekar wait!" Tia screamed.  "The stairs will disappear!  What about Lexis?!?!"

A dim shape, Lexis fell almost from the very top of the stairs.  He hurtled to the ground beside Tia.  Meanwhile, the buffalo hurled itself from side to side, its thrashing growing more and more frenzied.

"Tia, let's move out of the way!" Lexis shouted.  They fled the stairwell just in time.  Before the stairs disappeared, Tia had a fleeting sight of the black iron toppling, ripped from the ceiling like the blighted roots of a dead tree.

"Lexis!  You're not hurt!" Tia marveled. 

Lexis rubbed at the back of his head.  "Overmuch…" he corrected her.  "It seems that I had the good fortune to land on some leaves."  He held out the gray-green leaves for Tia's inspection.

"Terrific!  You're both alright!" a familiar voice exclaimed.  "Look what I found!"  He swung his splendid new blade in the air.

"Dekar!" Tia fumed.  "You left Lexis on the stairs while that buffalo was tearing them out of the ceiling!  How irresponsible!"

Dekar lowered his sword, grinning sheepishly.  "Sorry, Lexis," he said.  "Are you unhurt?"

"I'll live," Lexis answered wryly.  "Remember to save us once in a while, okay Dekar?"

"Sure thing," Dekar said.  "Here's something that will baffle your scientific mind, Lexis.  What are plants doing inside the Ancient Cave?"

Lexis shrugged.  "Beats me.  Why though?  Do I still have leaves in my hair?"

"Nope.  Look."  Dekar waved his hand.  Gray-green vines trailed from the walls like strands of rotted hair.  Shrubs of a similar hue eclipsed the floor tiles.

Lexis stopped and stared at the peculiar greenery.  "Oh my goodness!  I really don't know why they are growing here of all places…"  He spoke slowly as if his mind was elsewhere.  "I do know, however, that from the Ancient Cave, we should expect no less than the unexpected."

Dekar and Tia silently agreed.

{--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------}

Excerpt from Lexis Shaia's log:

_Today Dekar, Tia, and I entered the __Ancient__Cave__.  We reached the tenth floor at the end of the day.  We are spending the night near the stairs to the eleventh floor.  If we continue to progress at this rate, we will attain the bottom floor in nine days. _

_I do not trust this cave…  It rather reminds me of a living entity, though I have little evidence to support the point.  I have made several observations today, which, though phenomenal – scientifically speaking – are also disturbing.  The cave changes shape with the dawn.  No two shapes are said to be alike.  What causes the cave to change its shape?  And just what determines the shape that it takes?  Is there a pattern of some sort?  And if so, is it magical, mathematical, or a mixture of the two?  The halls and chambers are infested with monsters, both herbivorous and carnivorous.  There are plants in this cave, which grow in the absence of sunlight.  Their color is ghostly…peculiar as a rule.  The presence of monsters and vegetation leads me to this question.  Who or what made this cave?  What purpose did they have in making it? The coincidences are too perfect to be wrought of chance.  I can only conclude that this cave is one of the more worthy – though overlooked due to its danger- scientific marvels of the world.  I am both honored and apprehensive to explore it, for I dread what I might uncover…_

_{**********************************************************************************************************************}_

_Author's notes:  I am going on vacation very soon…which is to say that updates are unlikely until mid-June.  Terribly sorry about that.  Anyhow, I _will_ be working on this fic while I am away (the old fashioned way though – pen and paper -), so Doc, please don't get too happy with that whip, okay?  Oh, and Doc…  Thank you so much for your wonderful, motivating reviews!  _


	5. Deceptive Treasure

Chapter Five: Deceptive Treasure

                On the seventh floor of the Ancient Cave, Guy and Artea entered a chamber formed half of darkness and half of light.  A single pillar shrouded the tiles on the left side in shadow.  From wall to wall stretched a carpet of bones.

                "Whoa," Guy said.  "Better be careful walking on these, Artea."  Undaunted, Guy proceeded to a treasure chest that crouched in the dimness.

                Artea took up one of the skulls and examined it closely.  It offered not even a hint as to the death of its owner.  The elf shuddered.  Just standing amongst this grisly collection of bones made him uneasy.  "What do you suppose killed them, Guy?"

"Dunno," Guy said with a shrug.  His cave-donated armor clanking, Guy bent over the chest.

                 "Hey!  What the -_AGH_!" Guy's shout made Artea's blood run cold.  Recklessly the elf scrambled over the bones to Guy's side.  When he got there, however, there was no overpowering beast engaged in combat with Guy.  In fact, there were no monsters at all.  This dark side of the room was as empty as the light side.  One of Guy's hands had gotten stuck inside the treasure chest.  He had rammed his sword into the crack between the box and its lid in an attempt to open it again.

                "Guy, what are you doing?" Artea thought he would collapse from sheer relief.  "Stop fooling around.  It doesn't matter if the chest doesn't open.  There are plenty of others in this cave-"

                "Artea, you don't understand-!"  Guy's face twisted with pain.  "It's biting my hand off!"

                "What?" Artea involuntarily took a step back.  "_What_ is?"  His hand strayed to his launcher.

                Guy jerked at his sword but couldn't get it loose.  "The _treasure chest, of course!"  Sweat ran down his face._

                It was impossible! Artea's mind argued with him.  Yet…so was the resurrection of the dead – their very mission which had brought them into a cave that all along defied logic and sensibility.  "Don't move, Guy," Artea warned him.  Guy froze in place.  Artea nocked his bow and aimed for the chest's keyhole.  It was an easy shot; an elf child could have made it.  He let the arrow fly.  

At the last minute the chest bucked and tore to one side.  Guy screamed in pain as the chest's unexpected movement dragged him to his knees.  Rivulets of crimson streamed down his arm, soaking his armor and the tunic he wore beneath it.  Artea gasped.  Cold sweat formed on his brow.  The elf fired two more shots in quick succession.  These hit their mark, embedding themselves in the keyhole.  

The chest screeched like a small cornered animal.  Its lid flew open so quickly that it knocked Guy off balance.  The warrior barely caught himself before he fell into the pile of bones.  His sword clattered to the ground.  Panting, Guy rushed to Artea's side.  With a horrific creak that sounded as if its hinges had rusted, the chest lid slowly closed again.  When it had shut, blood slowly dribbled down the front of it, staining its decorative gold trimming.  The arrows remained quivering long after the lid had shut.

                "Guy, are you okay?" Artea demanded.

                Guy's eyes were as shiny as glass.  He nodded shakily.  "My hand…"

                Artea examined the bite wound more closely.  The blood was still flowing freely at Guy's wrist.  Enormous chunks of skin dangled from his arm like a grotesque bracelet.  The stray teeth scrapings were a tattoo of red flame.  "It will mend," Artea said at last.  

                "If I'd only had some gauntlets…" Guy said, looking again at the treasure chest.  "Then it wouldn't have got me."

                "You _were_ ambushed," Artea pointed out.  "Let's move on, shall we?"  He didn't like the way Guy's eyes were lingering on the chest.  It was as if the warrior was contemplating a second bout with the monstrous thing.  "Maybe we'll find a 'Strong' spell soon."

                "Yeah, if you don't get your hands ripped off by some rabid treasure chest," Guy muttered.  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he retrieved his sword from the floor and followed Artea out the door.  

                Beyond the winding hallways, they came upon another chamber, empty save for a single treasure chest.  Guy froze in the doorway, Artea behind him.  "What's in there?" Artea asked him.  Guy began to shake.  His eyes filled with shame when he looked at the elf.  

Artea placed a hand on the warrior's shoulder.  "It's okay, Guy," he said reassuringly.  "I'll go in first.  If there's any trouble though, I'll need your help."

Guy smiled at gratefully at Artea and heaved a sigh of relief when he thought the elf wasn't looking.

Artea, meanwhile, stole silently across the room.  No fleshless figures bowed before this particular treasure chest.  Still, like Guy, he had no gauntlets.  Artea knew it was quite probable that if he were bit by a treasure chest, the teeth would go straight through his slender elven bones.  With that comforting thought, Artea drew his rapier.  As a weapon, it was not of much use to him.  Its length, however, was an inconceivable asset, especially since he and Guy had found out the hard way that the cave housed man-eating treasure chests.  The elf paused a slight distance away from the chest and pointed the sword at it.  The red box remained still.  Artea cringed.  He still did not trust the chest.  His heart began to pick up speed, pounding away in double time as he jabbed at the treasure chest with the sword point.  The chest did not stir.  _And now for the ultimate test, _Artea thought grimly.  His hands, so steady with the bow, so graceful and delicate, began to tremble like an arthritic old man's.  The lid of the chest was cool beneath his fingers.  Artea heaved the lid upwards with all the strength in his arms.  The lid flew backwards and landed with a clang on the floor on the other side.  The elf jumped backwards, prepared for a vicious onslaught.  However none came.  Artea's breathing was shallow and ragged in his ears.  Finally he gathered the courage to see what lay within the treasure chest.  

For a moment he thought that it was empty.  Then his sharp elven eyes discerned a slight sparkle of rainbow-colored light.  Artea drew his breath in.  As he did so, Guy bounded into the room.  When he saw the open chest, his face fell.  "So it was just an ordinary treasure chest, huh?"

Artea nodded.  Regaining courage, he reached into the chest.  The thing inside was a ring of simple yet cunning design.  In the light, it flashed with every color of the rainbow.

"Wow," Guy said, staring at the beautiful relic.  "I guess there's something to be said for being brave enough to open treasure chests."

Artea said nothing.   The ring was just large enough for his middle finger.  He slid it on and felt his soul strangely infused with a new hope

{****************************************************************************************************************}

Excerpt from Artea's log

                _Our journey is proceeding well. It is the close of the first day.  Guy and I have made it to the seventeenth floor.  We are well-laden for the journey.  The cave has provided us with weapons, helmet, and armor.  What we need, however, are shields, particularly Guy since he battles in the center of the fray.  Guy was ambushed by a treasure chest today, as odd as that sounds.  It nearly bit off his hand.  He has since been apprehensive about opening treasure chests.  I can hardly blame him.  The pain must be dreadful.  Though his hand is not going to fall off, as he seems to think, such a deep wound has a terrible risk of infection.  I have not found any strong spells to help the healing along…and the potions we carry have had no effect.  I wonder if the chest inflicted an enchanted bite…  In that case, we will need stronger medicine than even an antidote.  Shortly after Guy was ambushed, I opened a treasure chest containing an exquisite ring.  It is not made of any metal of which I have ever heard, nor Guy either.  It is formed of vibrant colors, yet is as lightweight as if composed of mere air.  Like a gem, it is faceted so that it catches the light, no matter which way you turn it.  As a result Guy has found a fascinating diversion in watching my hand.  As I pause to look on its beauty, I notice the strange light that emits from it - of all colors, and yet of none.  What a strange, yet fitting treasure to find in this cave of well-kept secrets.  I have lived long years, but never in any of them, have I seen something so lovely.  However, there is more to this ring than what the eye perceives.  Guy sees nothing special about the ring save for beauty and certain value.  Perhaps it is because he is human, or maybe because he is a warrior.  I, on the other hand, sense a great magical property about it, even just feeling its slight weight against my finger.  This power, like the ring itself, is of a secretive nature.  It does not manifest in the form of a spell…rather it is hidden deep, deep within, and for the moment I am uncertain just what is necessary to unleash it. _

{-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------}

Author's notes:

Amazing!  I updated today!  Yay!  (I wasn't expecting to make it, since in less than 48 hours I'll be on my way.)  Random blurb up ahead (in other words, optional reading).

I got my arms waxed before I wrote this…oww…  I am feeling Guy's pain right now…  

I have 5 Iris Treasures so far…Just 5 more to go and my work of four years will be complete (it takes a little longer when your cartridge keeps erasing your files!!)  Mwa hah hah hah hah!  I _will _be the greatest treasure hunter ever!


	6. Providence

Chapter Six: Providence

                Worry…it was all anyone was capable of mustering after the twentieth floor.  Well did Tia remember the sign in the creepy exterior to the dungeon.  "Providence available after twentieth floor," it had read.  It had not, however, specified what you were supposed to do in case you couldn't find Providence.  Nor did the sign mention a range of floors in which one had a chance of finding it.  Lexis agreed with Tia; more than ever, a careful search was necessary to find Providence.  However, the party's supplies were running low.  Tia supposed they wouldn't starve, though she had no desire to taste the plants of this dungeon, nor did she fancy dining on the soft dirt that composed the floor.  

The Ancient Cave had become considerably more difficult after they had left the tower for the dungeon, which epitomized the macabre and the dismal.  In place of colorful tiles, soft dirt covered the floors.  The shrubs and vines were so numerous that Tia was reminded of a messy garden with countless tangles of bones to mark the flowerbeds.  The farther they descended, the stranger the plants became, the more ghastly gray, almost white in places, from starvation for the sun.  At night a strange illumination rose from these macabre plots of earth, though whether it came from the bones, the plants, or something else altogether, they never learned.

  The tower…  Not an hour passed now when Tia did not think of it with longing.  She spent at least twice the time in battle as she had before.  These weren't the frequently easy fights of the floors above, but nerve-wracking ordeals she felt grateful to have survived.  Even Dekar, self-proclaimed strongest man in the world, was starting to show the strain.  His normal cheerfulness in battle had been replaced by an uncharacteristic look of concentration.

                Despite all their caution, their desperate hunt for Providence had yielded nothing, and the strain was beginning to show…  As Lexis put it, they were caught between a rock and a hard place.  They could make haste and risk missing Providence all together, or they could comb the dungeons and lose supplies, strength, and hope.  

                One day – all the days blurred into one endless dreary march – Lexis sent Tia and Dekar to scour the floor one final time for Providence.  He had drawn a map of every floor since their drastic change of scenery.  But even maps couldn't get them Providence.  Lexis claimed they had not even reached the thirtieth floor yet, but Tia knew he was lying.  By her count, thirty had long since passed them.

                "And here's this closet-sized room with nothing in it…what a waste of time," Dekar huffed.

                "It's worth your life if we escape from this cave," Tia reminded him.  "Providence is the only way."

                "Maybe so," Dekar sighed.  "But I'd rather fight something I can see than hunt for something that doesn't want to be found."

                Tia agreed with him silently and licked her cracked lips.  One of the chief problems of the Ancient Cave was the severe shortage of water.  She, Dekar, and Lexis had water skins that Artea had provided them.  Nonetheless, during the slow search, they had inevitably run dry.  Tia sometimes stared at the damp dungeon walls for hours while Lexis pored over his maps, assuring himself that she and Dekar had gone over the floor thoroughly.  

                When Tia and Dekar returned to Lexis, he had packed away his maps.  "Another floor down?" he said, already knowing the answer.

                Tia and Dekar nodded.

                Lexis sighed.  "Okay, on to the next floor."  Due to the sheer number of trips she and Dekar had made across the earthen passages, it took no time at all to find the stairs.  Unlike the tower steps, which were as narrow as lighthouse stairs and as stable as a bomb in Berty and Bart's hands, the dungeon stairs were formed of wide blocks of cracked stone.  Where the tower stairs had been perilously dark, the dungeon stairs had two-fold illumination: the sallow cast of bone and plant and the light of eerie blue torches, which, though they winked, never went out.

                When he stood in the doorway of the stairs and the dungeon's next floor, Dekar froze.

                "What is it?" Tia whispered.  Spells sprang to her mind by reflex.

                "Water," Dekar whispered, jubilant.

                Tia smiled then for the first time in a week.  "Where?"

                "Coming out of that gargoyle's mouth," Lexis said.

                The three almost ran to the fountain.  On the way, Tia spotted a red chest.  _It could be __Providence__, she thought.  Though it was not, her mood remained uplifted.  What she had found was a lovely gem cut with a skill Tia had never seen before, even upon the crowns of kings.  _

                "Is that Providence?" Lexis asked hopefully.

                "No," Tia said.  "But it sure is pretty.  Look."  She turned it so that the light twinkled like rainbow fire in every facet.

                "Quite," Lexis agreed with his rather detached scientific approval.  "It's a lovely prism.  Could I examine it for a moment?"

                "Well," Tia hesitated, reluctant to hand over her treasure.  "I suppose…"

                Lexis toyed with the jewel while Tia filled her water skin from the gargoyle fountain.  She tasted the water and found it, to her dismay, brackish.  _Still, what did I expect in this dirty dungeon? _ It was hardly comforting to recall that in a few floors, this murky water with its floating crumbs of dirt and rotted leaves would seem quite tasty indeed.  Tia drank her fill and lingered on, watching the water dribble from the gargoyle's mouth to the basin.  Its yellow, squinty eyes seemed to follow her as she rejoined Dekar and Lexis.

                "Dekar, it just occurred to me," Lexis was saying, "we haven't let our capsule monster out yet."

                "You mean it didn't disappear with the rest of our equipment?" Tia queried.

                "Nope."  Lexis paused in setting up his cartography supplies.  The scientist dug into the breast pocket of his lab coat and drew out a capsule half the size of Tia's thumb.

                "If you're bored," he said with a meaningful look at Dekar, who usually was, "you can take it for a walk and a few battles…while-"

                "You hunt for Providence," Dekar finished with a laugh.  "Would you like to come too, Tia?"

                "Sure," she agreed.

                "Here," Lexis said, giving Dekar the capsule.  "Oh, and Tia…your prism."

                "Thanks, Lexis."  She couldn't help but feel cheered at the sight of the dazzling jewel.  

                Tia and Dekar walked in silence for a few minutes until they happened upon some bees flitting near the ceiling.

                "They may be poking around up there, but their nest is in the ground," Dekar said.

                "Allow me," Tia said.  "Spark!" she pointed two fingers at the mound Dekar had pointed out.  Flame flashed at her fingertips and shot in an arc straight for the bees' nest.

                "Whoa!" Dekar gasped, stepping back from the blaze.  "Your magic's getting so powerful!"

                "Thanks!"  Tia beamed at the praise.  "Quick!  Release the capsule!  Here they come!"

                Dekar flung the capsule near the growing cloud of bees and drew his blade.  Tia stood ready with a spell on her lips and her whip in her hand.  From the capsule emerged a blue ball of hair.  When Flash saw the bees, it squeaked piteously and ran to hide under Tia's skirts.  Buzzing ferociously, the bees followed the capsule monster.

                "Firebird!" Tia shouted.  Dekar's eyes widened.  The phoenix Tia had summoned burst forth from her palms with such a powerful impact that she fell to the floor.  The drone of the bees drowned in the firebird's scream.  Flame roared as the great bird beat its wings.  Flash crept out to peer at the sight but quickly hid himself away again with a terrified yelp.  The firebird wheeled once more; its scream resounded in the silence.  The bees crumpled to the ground, ashes, every last one of them.  

                "Tia, are you okay?"  Dekar knelt by her side and took her hand.  "Tia?  Talk to me, Tia!"

                Tia groaned but did not stir.  Flash prodded at her cheek with the butt end of his spear.  Suddenly the little monster whirled.  Dekar narrowed his eyes.  There was no mistaking it – the sound of approaching footfalls.  

                "Dekar, what happened?" Lexis exclaimed.  "Tia!" he gasped, rushing to her side.  "I heard screams…familiar ones…"

                "Tia called down a firebird," Dekar said.

                "Impossible," Lexis said.  "We have not found a firebird spell!"

                "Oh," Dekar replied.  "Well, I still know what I saw."

                "Tia's not the type to keep back spell scrolls, either," Lexis said thoughtfully.

                "Who cares about that?" Dekar retorted.  "Aren't you worried about her at all?"

                Lexis touched Tia's hand, his brow furrowed in concentration.  This was the way of intimate communication – magic user to magic user.  "She's fine," Lexis said at last.

                Dekar heaved a sigh of relief, and Flash squeaked for joy.

                "She's just exhausted," Lexis added.  Then his hand brushed against Tia's prism.  Even in her faint, her fingers were wrapped tightly around it.  

                "I think that this had something to do with the firebird," Lexis said.  "It's only a hunch, though."  

                "Let's move her to the gargoyle room," Dekar suggested.  "There aren't any monsters in there."

                "Good idea," Lexis said.  "In fact, you can watch over her.  I'll explore the rest of this floor and make the map."

                "Will you be strong enough?" Dekar asked the scientist.

                "Lexis smiled.  "I won't be called the strongest man in the world any time in this lifetime, but I can hold my own in a fight.  Don't worry about me."

                "Well, okay," Dekar said hesitantly.  Once in the gargoyle room, Dekar remained by Tia's side for almost an hour.  She remained as motionless as a porcelain figure.  Dekar began to get worried.  "Wake up, Tia!  Please wake up!" he pleaded with her.  He rubbed his hands over hers; her fingers were like icicles.  "Please Tia," Dekar begged her, speaking sense and gibberish by turns.  "Maxim will kill me if something happens to you!"

                At Maxim's name, Tia's eyelids fluttered open.  "Dekar…" she said slowly.  "What happened?  Did we win the battle?"  

                "Yeah," Dekar said shakily.  "Lexis says you fainted because a spell you cast – firebird – exhausted you."

                "Dekar, that's impossible!"  An angry flush rose to Tia's cheeks.  "How dare you lie to me?  If I just wimped out in a battle, you should tell me!  I can handle the truth after all!"

                "That _is _the truth, Tia," Dekar said.  "You've changed so much since we parted," he added, his eyes distant with memories.  

                "What do you mean by that?" Tia's eyes, though narrow with suspicion, still managed to convey her deep hurt. 

                "You've come so far in battle; you have twice the might that you did before," Dekar replied.  Meeting the challenge in Tia's eyes made him physically and mentally weary, as if he faced a strong and cunning foe. 

                Tia's face fell.  "Thank you, Dekar," she whispered.  "That's probably the nicest thing a warrior has ever said to me."  Her voice trembled.

                "Tia, I have been meaning to ask you this for a long time," Dekar said.  "In Parcelyte, you said that you and Maxim could never be, despite your love for him.  Why are you on this journey to restore him?  Why did you come to this terrible place for the sake of a man whom you do not love?"

                Tia's lower lip trembled.  "I…"  She took a deep breath.  "I said I would find someone as good as Maxim.  But I think that before I find that person, I must find myself.  I'm no fighter…you know that, Dekar.  Inside of me ever since I've returned home, I've felt this emptiness.  I'm searching for something, Dekar, though I'm not really certain what."  Tia paused and sighed.  "I had hoped to find the answer by going on this adventure…_and _by seeing Maxim again.  If it hadn't been for him, this hole inside of me would never have opened."

                Dekar's eyes shone with purpose and a strange intuitive wisdom.  "I do not pretend to understand all of what you are saying," he said, looking at his calloused hands.  "I know the sword and its ways.  I know that the heart that fuels its movements – to protect and to kill – is simple.  What brings me happiness, I pursue, always.  What brings me sadness, I change."

                "Dekar," Tia whispered, awed at his unexpected wisdom.  "That's twice you've said something almost profound.  I think that I understand what you're saying.  Perhaps I came on this journey to find my own…happiness?"

                Before Dekar could reply, Lexis returned at a run.  His glasses hung askew on his face, and his eyes were wild.  His panting attested to his haste.

                "Lexis?" Dekar said, standing and drawing his sword.  "What's chasing you?"

                Lexis managed to shake his head.

                "So nothing's chasing you?" Tia asked.  "Are you okay then?"

                "Never better," Lexis puffed.  "I'm even better now that you're back with us," he said to Tia.  A smile kept trying to work its way onto his face.

                "What about your map?" Dekar asked him.  "Were the monsters too strong for you to fight alone?"

                "Finished it.  It's a small floor, this one is.  No point in wasting any more time on it."

                "But Lexis," Tia protested.  She wondered briefly if one of the monsters Lexis had fought had managed to confuse him.  

                "But _nothing_," Lexis interrupted in a tone that left no room for argument.  "There is no need to worry or linger here any longer!"  He reached into the breast pocket of his lab coat and withdrew an orb the size of a small ball.  Pearly fog crept around their glass prison, which emitted a cold light.  "I have at last found Providence!" the scientist declared triumphantly.

Excerpt from Lexis Shaia's log

                Today marks the rebirth of hope, for I have at last found Providence, the relic that will free us from this cave.  Now that we are not hunting the accursed thing, the party was able to reach the fiftieth floor in only an afternoon; we do not dare to travel at night.  It appears that we may make it to the bottom of the cave intact after all.  With nearly doubled progress, everyone's spirits have lifted considerably.

                Tia has found a peculiar prism.  I have reason to believe that it enhances magical power.  The reason is this: though we have not the spell scroll, Tia was able to summon the firebird, a powerful spell indeed.  Though her aptitude originally exceeded the average, I doubt she would be capable of such a feat...normally.  Now with her prism, it would seem that many powerful spells will be available to her.  I wonder just how great the power of that single prism is.  Does it enhance magical power based on the aptitude of the individual?  Are there any such jewels in the world outside of the cave?  Would it teach the arcane to a warrior like Dekar?  I could make an interesting study of the prism…  However, Tia is very attached to it; even if it leaves her possession for a couple of minutes, she becomes ill at ease.  Besides, I have a greater mystery on my hands than a mere gem.  This cave is simultaneously baffling, fascinating, and nightmarish.  One who dares to probe its depths risks drowning.  Our near-failure to find Providence is just one proof of that.  My maps of the cave are thorough and detailed, not that they will avail much good, considering that the cave changes its shape with the dawn.  Nonetheless, if ever I do conduct a formal study of the cave, they will be good examples of the evolving shapes of the caves and may provide a clue to the pattern, if one even exists.

{**********************************************************************************************************************}

Hello, everyone.  I'm back from my extensive, well-deserved vacation.  Sigh…  Though I was very busy in Hawaii, I found some time to work on this fic almost every day.  Of course, I still have to type it into the computer and fix my many errors.  That is to say that updates might be longer in coming for the next few chapters.  As you will see, chapters that I wrote on vacation tend toward the long side, so that too, is a factor that contributes to the delay.  Please forgive me.

BTW, Mr. Hey.  You have enviable luck to get through the Ancient Cave so fast.  I have been in the cave for a few years now since my dumb cartridge seemed to take gleeful pleasure in erasing all my progress.  Now that I have zsnes, I have made better progress than I have in years.  I've even been to the bottom twice just for the hell of it (I never could do it with the cartridge…damn mimics…stupid erase-happy game!)


	7. The Sneak Thief

Chapter Seven: The Sneak Thief

Excerpt from Artea's log

            I wonder if this journey is ever going to come to an end.  Guy and I have reached the fiftieth floor by my count.  It marks half of the journey behind us, but half yet to come.  It appears that matters won't be easier as we proceed, either.  The monsters are starting to exhibit alarming strength and guile.  Lexis said that swords and sorcery together can handle anything.  But there are times at the end of battles when Guy and I can barely stand.  The monsters are as infinite as misery, and their ranks are only growing.  

            More than powerful monsters and strenuous combat, the psychological aspect of this dungeon is at last taking effect.  Slowly yet surely the walls of the cave seem to be closing in to suffocate us.  More than anything in the world, I long to feel the kiss of the sun on my face and to know against the sweet sensation of the wind's fingers in my hair.  I cannot bear rotting in this tomb for much longer.  

            The only thought that has sustained me is the prospect of restoring Maxim and Selan to life.  This is Guy's and my sacred mission, which we must not forget, no matter how terrible our quest becomes.  The sacred companionship of the Doom Island Four binds us with an oath stronger than brotherhood.  And though my very life be endangered and my hours filled with misery, still I will persist to restore the very greatest of the Doom Island Four.

End of excerpt

Unseen hands roughly shoved Artea to the damp earthen cave floor.  Caught unaware, the elf toppled.  Something heavy slammed into the back of his head, momentarily stunning him.  He groaned and attempted to spring to his feet.  A second blow, more powerful than the first, smashed into his head.  In his half-conscious state, the elf could feel hands running along his body, thieving fingers that didn't miss a pocket.

Guy finally caught on to the fact that Artea was being attacked.  "Why you!" he hissed.  The blonde warrior drew his sword and advanced on the thief.  The nimble thief easily evaded his furious sword thrusts.  Nonetheless, Guy had a plan: to slowly lure his opponent into a corner.  And the plan worked…until the thief flung a suspicious packet to the ground.  

"Spark!"  Flames latched on to the item, and thick smoke filled the air.  Guy reeled forward, his eyes watering.  His nostrils stung from the yellow smoke.  A taste of rotten eggs settled upon his tongue.  Frantically he batted at the air with his sword.  He only slashed at air.  It appeared that the thief would surely escape when-

"Zap!" Artea, his voice powerful and terrible with bitter elven anger, sent a triangle of lightning snaking across the dungeon floor.  Clumps of dirt sprayed loose in chunks.  A circle lit beneath the target's feet, locking the thief in place.  Through the nauseous smoke, Guy could see the thief, a shadowy silhouette.  Suddenly the explosion that marked the close of the Zap spell shook the chamber.  Guy was thrown to the ground.   Long after the magic had run its course, he lay there, stunned, still feeling the ground quavering.  

"Guy," Artea said.  He sounded weary beyond measure.  The elf extended his hand to the blonde warrior.  Guy smiled at him, not realizing that he was lying on the ground.  "I'm sorry.  I cast the spell to snare the thief, but you were in its range as well.  Luckily you only got hit with the edge of it.  I hope you are unhurt, Guy…  Speak to me, Guy!" 

His eyes swimming in his head, Guy at last managed to grasp the elf's hand and rise from the floor.  Then together, in silence, they approached the fallen form of Artea's assailant.  Slowly the smoke cleared.  Guy could see that the unconscious thief was a girl about Tia's age.  Her clothes were in rags.  Caked filth covered her skin as if she had not bathed in weeks, something Guy knew was very possible if one ventured into this dungeon.  Guy wondered briefly if some of that noxious smell might not be due to the girl's smoke bomb after all.  Upon her clever fingers, she wore Artea's rainbow-colored ring.  In the same hand, she clutched a transparent orb.  Providence.

"She did a fair clean-sweep on you, Artea," Guy remarked as he surveyed the girl's ill-gotten gain.

Artea pried Providence out of her grip and returned it to his own pocket.  "The question is what we should do with her," he said when he had taken his ring back and slid it onto his finger.

"What do you mean?" Guy asked, confused.  "Surely the spell killed her."

The elf cringed, and Guy suddenly regretted his coarse statement.

Another moment passed, whereupon the girl groaned piteously.  

Artea laughed softly but mirthlessly.  "It would appear not.  She is either very powerful, or extraordinarily lucky," the elf said.  "Frankly, I suspect the latter."

"She can't be _that lucky," Guy remarked.  "I bet she has been trapped in this cave for some time.  Look at how thin she is.  You don't make a hardy livelihood down in this dungeon, I suppose."_

Artea, aloof by nature, as was the way of his kin, looked again at the unconscious thief.  Her chest was heaving as if her starved body was trying to devour the air.  Her cheekbones protruded sharply, and her arms and legs were as small as a child's.  Ropey muscles showed plainly through her ghostly flesh.  In his cold, mirror-like eyes flashed a glint of pity.

"I resent the delay," the elf admitted.  "But let's wait for her to awaken.  If she wishes, she can travel to the bottom with us and, when the time comes, use Providence to escape."

Guy hid his smile behind his hand.  Perhaps the elves weren't as untouchable as they wished to appear.

{****}

            Artea and Guy waited for almost half a day for the scrawny girl to come around.  Artea refused to use a potion or a spell to revive her ("What if she tried to take Providence again?").  Nonetheless, Guy could tell that the typical elven regard for all life was kicking in.  Guy knew that the girl's death would injure Artea's morale considerably, since he had been the one who had cast Zap.  So they lingered beside the thief on her journey from Death's door, to his threshold, and back again.  Finally Guy's eyelids began to get heavy.  Surely snatching a moment of rest wouldn't hurt.  Artea was as vigilant as a hawk, and besides, elves didn't ever really sleep, did they?

            Suddenly Artea's shout sliced through the veil of slumber that had settled over Guy.  The warrior snapped to alertness.  He lurched to his feet and freed his sword.  

            The thief had risen.  Already she and Artea were locked in a face-off of sorts that would have been comical had the prize not been so precious.

            "Be careful, Guy!" Artea warned him as the warrior closed in.  "She's been casting the Dread spell for some time now!  Fighting her with a sword might be more difficult."

            "Feh!  I'm surprised you got this far into the cave," the thief mocked.  "Your savvy is quite lacking."

            "You mean stealth and cowardice?" Guy retorted.

            The girl smirked.  "It's a gift," she said.  "An elf," she remarked cynically when she caught sight of Artea.  "I might have known.  What else would be stupid enough to leave me alive?"

            Artea's eyes blazed with violet flame.  The fire smoldered and died, becoming frigid violet crystals.  

            Guy felt scalding rage wash through his veins.  Artea placed a warning hand on his shoulder.  His ring flashed in the torchlight.  

            The thief's eyes, hard and narrow, widened in surprise.  Suddenly without warning she bowed low to Artea and Guy.  "You might be too compassionate for your own good," she amended, "but you have an Iris treasure in your possession."  Her gaze lingered on Artea's graceful elven fingers.

            _That could only be Artea's ring, Guy thought.  His every nerve exuded ice where once fires had burned.  He did not trust the thief girl.  Nonetheless, her tone was so suave that he could hardly believe her to be the same scalawag they had fought before.  _

            "I am M'hana, resident treasure hunter of the Ancient Cave."  M'hana bowed even lower.  Her greasy bangs nearly brushed against the ground.  "For four long years, I have wandered these corridors in search of the Iris Treasures."  Now M'hana rose.  "I have seven of them thus far…and now I see that you have the eighth in your possession."

            Though it hardly seemed possible, Artea's glare chilled a few degrees further.

            "I recall hearing you mention that if I awoke, you would take me with you to the bottom floor of this cave _and _warp me out with Providence.  Does that still hold?"

            Artea made a strangled sound and freed his rapier.  Quick as a cat's wink, he pointed it at M'hana's scrawny throat.  His shoulders rose and fell so rapidly that Guy wondered if the life-revering elf might run M'hana through after all.  All expression melted from M'hana's face.  Artea's arm trembled; the rapier in his hand quavered.  Finally the elf heaved a deep breath.  "Yes.  You can travel to the bottom floor with us.  If you live to the time we use Providence, then you shall return to the surface."

            "What?" the thief whined.  M'hana pushed the slim blade away from her throat.  She opened her eyes as wide as they would go.  "You mean…" she sniffed piteously, "you strong men won't protect me?  You would leave a living being – a helpless young woman to the perils of this dungeon?"  Her eyes locked with Artea's, challenging him with his own philosophy.

            The elf sheathed his rapier in a poor attempt to regain his lost dignity.  "Don't discount your own abilities," Artea said.  "You are a highly skilled sneak thief and have managed to sustain your life through all these floors.  I imagine that vermin envy your survival instincts."

            M'hana flicked her wrist.  Before Guy could blink, a dagger flashed into her hand.  "Do not annoy me, elf," she hissed.  "Cutting throats is a simple matter for me."

            "That does not concern me," Artea retorted.  "I suspect that your lust for the ring I wear will drive you to that extreme anyways.  Don't expect to complete your collection of Iris treasures in this lifetime.  Elven life spans surpass those of humans by a few centuries."

            M'hana's face turned a mottled shade of red.  A scathing reply perched upon her pursed lips.

            Guy intervened before things could turn too ugly.  "Let's get going, Artea," he suggested.  "We cannot afford to waste time on this argument."

            "Very well," the elf said stiffly.  "Walk in front of me, Thief.  Guy and I shall follow behind you."

            M'hana raised an eyebrow.  Then, a secretive smile on her lips, she crept forward, silent as the darkness.  

{****}

            When they stopped at the end of that day, Artea and Guy were soaked in sweat.  The further they descended, the mustier and staler the cave air became.  Only M'hana seemed unaffected by the tomb-like environs.  At times in fact, she seemed to enjoy the filthy confining corridors.  Artea had a sneaking suspicion that she enjoyed them purely for the discomfort they brought him.  Often it was as if she melded with the very shadows.  Both Guy and Artea's sword arms felt as if they would fall off.  Long and difficult battles had numbed their muscles to all sensations.  Artea was on the verge of losing his voice from the many spells he had cast during the day.  M'hana, however, seemed accustomed to such hardship, perhaps because she had fought all of her previous battles alone.

            Disgruntled and exhausted, Artea and Guy inspected the same chamber in which they had chosen as their camp.  No monsters were to be found.  Guy shut the door behind them.  Meanwhile, Artea enchanted several bushes so that they blazed with blue elven fire that would ward off monsters that might venture past them in the night.  After taking these precautions, Guy and Artea leaned against the wall, waiting for rest their exhausted bodies would not allow them.  M'hana remained in the darkest corner of the circle next to the fungus-spotted wall.  She sat as stiff and still as a statue.  

            "How many days do you estimate until we reach the floor with the cup, Artea?" Guy asked, keeping his voice low in case the self-named treasure hunter was listening.

            Artea thought for a moment.  "Probably another four days if we make haste.  I, for one, favor taking a week or so to get there.  Speed will do no good if it kills us."

            "Agreed," Guy said.  "And it's not getting any easier in this dungeon.  Every time I look up now, we're in battle."

            Artea sighed.  "Guy, what are you going to do when we finish this adventure?"

            "Die of boredom?" Guy suggested.

            Artea laughed, but it sounded forced.  "I meant seriously," the elf said.  There was no mistaking the pain in his voice.  

            Guy sighed as if honest reflections awoke similar melancholy in him.  "After I returned from Doom Island, Jesse told me that if I went on another adventure, she would not wait for me.  Well, when I said I was going to Gruberick, Jesse made good on her word.  So now I have no girlfriend waiting for me…  Hilda's still running the inn.  Maybe I can bum some work off of her and _then die of boredom.  On second thought, Maxim and Selan will be back in Parcelyte.  Maybe we can go on one last adventure before we get too old for it."  Suddenly Guy laughed.  "Well, getting old won't be something _you _have to worry about for quite a while, huh, Artea?  Lucky for you."_

            Artea managed a weak smile.  "It's always one more adventure," he murmured.  "Guy, do you ever feel as if being on par with Super Beings sets you apart from everyone else?  Like you just can't be normal and live life, you _have _to fight and seek new horizons with…"

            "With?" Guy echoed.

            "Your 'friends of the sword'?" Artea choked out.

            "Yeah, now that you mention it," Guy said thoughtfully.  "It's as if we're restless all the time…like sentries that never really sleep."

            Artea managed a cynical smile, as if that was just what he had expected to hear.  

            "What about you, Artea of the long-lived elves?" M'hana queried from the shadows.  Not a trace of mockery tinged her words.  Nonetheless, Guy glimpsed Artea stiffen.  A long silence hung over the dismal chamber.  

At last Artea spoke.  "Above all things, we elves revere life.  However, we do not treasure it simply for being.  Rather we view life as part of an intricate, ongoing cycle that endures through the ages."  Artea paused as if speaking further of the matter pained his very heart.  "What we are trying to do – recovering the cup of wishes and using it to resurrect the fallen – will break that cycle in which death and life play equal roles.  So entirely will this act defy convention that my people already despise me for attempting it.  They will view Maxim and Selan, the revived heroes, as monstrosities.  What is more, however, if we actually succeed, they may go as far as to come after me and those whom the cup revives."

"So you will be forced into exile?"  There was no mistaking the hard edge of bitterness in Guy's voice.

"Yes.  I will be an outcast at best," Artea said.

"How awful that they would persecute you for having your own ideas," Guy whispered.

"Feh," M'hana snorted huffily.  "It is a bitter fact to swallow.  But when you reject a society's norms, you are, in effect, rejecting society."  She only sounded sad, perhaps even a little nostalgic.  

Artea raised an eyebrow at M'hana's observation.  "Yes, that is true," he said.  "The elves have a very structured, uniform society."

M'hana barked a harsh laugh of derision.  "All too true, elf!  That is why your kind is so predictable!"  With that, the thief slunk back into the shadows.  Artea and Guy remained in the light of the eerie blue fire to catch what sleep they could.  Guy nodded off almost immediately.  Artea, however, stared long into the still, moist darkness, watching for any flickers of movement and keeping close vigil over his Iris ring.  

{**********************************************************************************************************}

Hopefully updates will be more frequent now that I've gotten my head on straight, so to speak.  Sorry for the big delays.  Jet lag bites. :(

I have a question for anyone reading this fic, but it's a little off the subject (not too much, though)  Does anyone have a copy of Elaine Pedee's fic, _Final Fantasy III: Conspiracy of the Cult_?  If you do, _please e-mail it to Sarsos@aol.com.  A thousand thanks!_

Doc, it's so good to hear from you again.  ;)


	8. Winged Peril

Chapter Eight Winged Peril

            The corridor was easily the longest of all the Ancient Cave.  Its thick carpet of dust seemed to stretch on for miles.  In the complete darkness gleamed countless eyes.  They blazed in every color, staring incessantly from every corner.  Each blink rifled the dust, which settled with a chiding whisper.  These eyes, malice-filled and time-hardened, though bright as jewels, were more a part of the darkness than the black.  Waiting, they watched, and watching, they waited.  Unseeing, they stared for ages upon ages until three shadows and a ray of paler gloom fell across their threshold.  Each eye hooded itself behind a massive window like shy animals escaping hunters' sight.  However, the keepers of the eyes were unquestionably hunters and the intruders the hunted though they did not realize this until it was too late.

            "Wow," Dekar said.  "It's so dark in here!"

            "I suppose it was too much to hope for that there would be torches to light our way all through the dungeon," Lexis sighed.  "Oh well.  We'll just have to proceed cautiously.  You can come in, Tia.  It's perfectly okay."  He turned to the young woman, who was carrying Flash in her arms.

            "N…no!"  Tia managed a strangled gasp.  "There's something in there, something _horrible!"  Flash jumped to the ground and stared up at the humans.  A flash between Tia's fingers showed that the jewel was still in her hands._

            Lexis and Dekar looked at one another, weighing between them what she had just imparted.      

            "It's not that I don't believe you, Tia," Lexis said at last.  "But we've no alternative.  If we don't get through this room, we won't be able to proceed to the next floor."

            "We mustn't go through!" Tia replied, her voice shrill, almost frantic.

            "It'll be okay, Tia," Dekar assured her.  "_I'll be with you.  I'm the strongest man in the world, remember?"_

            Glassy-eyed, Tia managed a swift acknowledgement.  As she did so, her fear seemed to take hold of Lexis too.  The scientist cleared his throat.

            "We should cross this room together," he said.  "And I'll put away my maps so we can move faster."

            Tia peeked again into the dismal chamber.  Her face turned white. 

            "On my count," Lexis said as he finished stowing his now-extensive map collection, "we'll begin crossing the chamber."

            "One…"

            Dekar, Lexis, and Tia drew their weapons.  Lexis cast an enchantment that would make the weapons as luminous as torches.

            "Two…"

            Flash growled, his already-wild hair bristling.

            "Three."

            They did not run as Tia had expected.  Instead, the party stirred the chamber's thick dust at a brisk walk.

            "Incredible," Lexis whispered, looking about him.  A dusky forest of columns stretched in all directions.  It was as if they had wandered into the ghostly remnants of the tower.  Ancient banners waved slightly when the outside air hit the corridor.  Silence drummed in the party's ears.  With every step, Tia grew more certain of the incredible danger sealed in the chamber.  However, the utter darkness remained silent and still.  Before long, Tia turned around to check their progress.  However, she could not make out the glow of the doorway from which they had entered.  Even more disturbing, however, their enchanted weapons were rapidly growing dim.  The party slowed to a crawl, for they could not see more than a few feet in front of them.  At length, the last light trapped in Dekar's blade faded away.  A leathery rustle could be heard above, and clouds of dust snowed from the rafters.

            Suddenly myriad hues flashed from out of the darkness.  Emerald green, fire red, and ice blue rained upon the party.  With the jewels descended Dread so potent that Flash dropped his spear and fled.  Tia sank to the ground feeling as if she would retch. Still more jewels suspended upon currents of darkness encircled the party.  Then sharp screams shook the ceiling, a signal of sorts.  At this signal, the magic laid over the party's weapons dissipated.  Light flared to life, illumining their foes.  Dragons innumerable glinted in the light in impressive golds, silvers, and coppers.  For a moment the party could only gape at the splendid beasts before them, marveling at their deadly beauty.  The dragons, meanwhile, pondered the puny creatures that had stumbled into their lair. 

            Then the spell was broken.  Dekar, Tia, and Lexis huddled together, back to back.  Their weapons glinted palely in the light from the dragons' eyes.  The eyes rose and fell, rapidly entangling the party in a circle from which there was no escape.

            "They've trapped us," Lexis whispered, a tremor in his voice.  

Tia tightened her grip on her staff.  

            "Then we'll fight our way out," Dekar growled.

            "There is one chance left to us," Lexis said quickly.  "Our strength is in speed.  If we can get the first strike, then we might be able to break their hold and escape to the next floor."

            "We have no choice," Dekar grimly reminded the scientist.  Mysterious fire – battle lust – shone in the warrior's eyes.  "No alternative _but the battle!  An attempt to flee would mean certain death.  We __must fight!"_

            Adrenaline seeped across Tia's skin like a swarm of tiny ants.  Her heart pounded, and her blood sang.  The words to a spell came to her lips, the spell that would summon the Thunder Beast.  However, it was a spell from Lexis's archive, not nearly as powerful as the firebird she had called forth without a minute of study.  

Lexis, too, chanted the arcane words that would unleash thunder's fury on their assailants.

            "Attack that copper one," Dekar advised.  He pointed his blade at a vicious-looking copper dragon that barred their way to the rest of the forgotten hall.  Tia could sense the power Dekar was building in his sword.  She saw how rigidly he clutched it, glimpsed the shine of sweat on his heavily furrowed brow.  Then but briefly she wondered if they would be able to break free of the dragons' circle.  _No! _she counseled herself.  _That is only the deception of Dread!  We must succeed!  We will!_

            Lexis finished his spell first.  White light showered from the upper reaches of the chamber.  In this brilliant glare, the Thunder Beast descended upon the copper dragon.  The Thunder beast shrieked his challenge, but the shadows of the chamber swallowed his shrill call.

            The copper dragon's eyes glinted with intelligence, and the chamber fell under shadow once more.  The party could not see the battle of copper and thunder, but the lingering darkness attested to the fact that the copper dragon had gained the upper hand.

Frigid bands closed around Tia's heart.  _It knows what I am about to do!  Nonetheless, she had no choice but to unleash the spell.  Electricity shot from her fingers with such force that it nearly toppled her.  This time the radiant silver Thunder Beast materialized amidst clouds and torrents of rain and wind.  The gale buffeted the party; even the dragons seemed to look at one another as if to question the reappearance of the Thunder Beast.  As he descended, the beast began to shine with the pale illumination, that of a curtain of rain shimmering against the light.  The beast tossed its head proudly.  Its challenge resounded through the hall, itself a thunderclap.  The dragon's mirth vanished.  With a roar like the sea, the copper flung itself at its new foe.  Thunder beast and copper dragon took flight, tearing at one another in midair.  Occasionally the sounds of their fight would reach the party.  However, darkness again concealed both winner and victor.  Suddenly Tia's strength gave way.  She fell to the floor, gasping for ragged breath after ragged breath._

            "Tia!" Lexis shouted.

            Far off in the darkness, the copper dragon screamed its triumph.  Before the party could gather itself to flee, the wyrm reappeared.  Murder shone in its crimson eyes.

            Tia managed to regain her feet, leaning against Lexis.  She had to stand, for the life of the entire party depended on Dekar.  Looking down, she realized that she clutched the jewel so tightly that blood droplets flecked her wrist.  Any further thoughts she might have had on the matter fled her at the raw power of Dekar's battle cry.

            The warrior hurled himself at the copper dragon, the sword in his hand wicked and sharp.  However, the courage-drunk wyrm did not budge.  Instead, it drew back, arching its back like a pleased cat, daring Dekar closer.  The blade of the sword swung so fast that it appeared as a half-moon-shaped blur, speeding onward to the dragon's very heart.  Tia could not look away.  With the scrape of steel and stone, in a shower of orange sparks, Dekar's sword rang against the dragon's scales.  Mighty indeed was the warrior's blow, yet the dragon's scales were antiquated armor, as mighty as the power within a Sinistral.  Power collided upon power; it was inevitable that one would break the other.  Silver smashed against copper in a collision that shook even the battle's bystanders.  Dekar grunted, adding power in mid-stroke, forcing strength into the blow.  Tia gasped.  Amongst the fiery embers glinted sharp particles of silver.  _Dekar's blade!  _Despair seized her.  The dragon armor had withstood Dekar, even going so far as to crush his blade to pieces!

{**********************************************************************************************************}


	9. Winged Peril, the Arch Fiend and Artea’s...

Chapter Nine:  Winged Peril, the Arch Fiend and Artea's Premonition

Guy and Artea's newly acquired sneak thief moved with the graceful, fluid motions of shadow.  Soundless and swift, she scouted the path ahead for monsters and traps until - "Agh!  Oof!" M'hana's fall broke the silence of the corridor with an ungraceful thud.  The rather large pack she usually wore strapped to her back worked itself loose and flew across the chamber with a clatter.  "Dammit!" M'hana growled from the ground, adding a string of colorful muttered oaths.  With whip-like movements, she snatched at her fallen items, stuffing them frantically into her pack.  She did not finish before Guy and Artea caught up to her.

"It sounded like a peddler wrecked his wagon over here.  Are you okay?" Artea asked her.

"Quite alright," M'hana insisted, even though her shins were stinging.  She slung the pack over her back and looked back crossly.  "I'm going to speak to that old coot about lighting in this dungeon." 

"How could you miss that treasure chest?" Guy asked, looking behind M'hana. 

"I was thinking of a way to steal the Iris ring without the elf noticing," M'hana replied with a sneer.  "I should have watched where I was going."

"Let's see what's inside," Guy suggested.  "It is a blue chest, after all."

"You don't need any more weight, you know," M'hana remarked.  "We're already moving as slow as a snail dipped in molasses."

Guy shrugged.  "Oh well.  If it's a crummy item, we can always leave it, right?"  He bent over the treasure chest.

M'hana sighed irritably and reached into her pack.  "One, two…" she counted softly.  "Seven," she finished with a sigh of relief.  "Phew.  They're all here."

"Your Iris treasures?" Artea questioned.

M'hana nodded curtly.  "Four years of my life are in this burlap sack, elf.  Don't be thinking that any of these will make a good addition to your ring."

"Don't worry about it," Artea said wryly.  "I'm not like you, after all."

"Feh."  M'hana was cut off in mid-smirk by Guy's shout of surprise.

"Artea!" Guy yelled.  "It's alive!"

For a moment, Artea had no idea just what Guy meant.  Then the blue treasure chest reared back on its haunches.  A high-pitched shriek emitted from the opening.  M'hana's mouth dropped in an _O of surprise.  Artea nocked his bow and swiftly sent an arrow into the bucking chest.  More from surprise than anything else, the chest fell back from the warrior.  _

"Guy, get away from there!" the elf shouted.  

Guy needed no urging.  He dashed back to Artea and M'hana, his eyes wild.  "I'm starting to think I'm damned to have chests come to life when I open them."

While the party watched it suspiciously, the chest remained still, despite the arrow that had pierced it.  

At length, M'hana tossed her head impatiently.  "It's no use just standing here," she said.  "That chest is standing right on the stairs.  If we can't defeat it, or at least get it to move, we won't be able to move on."

Guy groaned.  Artea leaned on his bow pondering their perplexing problem.  Back in the tower when he and Guy had encountered the red mimic, he had not actually slain the creature.  He had only wounded it sufficiently so that it would release Guy's hand.  How then, was one to fight a treasure chest?  He supposed that distance attacks would be the party's best bet, since it would be perilous to stand in the way of the chest's strong jaws.

"Guy, cast fireball on the chest," Artea, the strategic mind of most of their battles, told him.  

"What?  Me, cast a spell?" Guy said, incredulous.  "I'm a warrior, Artea!"

"Guy," Artea grumbled with exaggerated patience.  "Remember that orange ring you found yesterday?  It will let you cast fireball.  Just let your fighting energies flow through it.  The ring will do the rest."

Guy scratched his head.  "Okay, Artea."

"M'hana, can you shoot a bow?" Artea asked her.

The thief shook her head vehemently.  "I don't mess with elven weapons.  We have plenty of fry pans and daggers that we don't need anymore.  I'll throw those at the chest."

"Suit yourself," Artea said, though he doubted that her doing so would have any effect in the least.  _Stubborn human._  He then began to chant the incantation for Ice Valk.  It was a long, drawn out spell entreating the Ice Queen to appear in the midst of the party despite the squalor of the dungeon.  However, it drained less magical energy than Zap, and the elf wanted to be certain to have some energy left over to cure wounds.  Though he and Guy had wandered almost the entire scope of floors in the dungeon, they had found few potions and only one miracle.  Most of their treasures consisted of equipment.  Artea did not want to risk his or Guy's becoming wounded.

M'hana rifled through Artea's pack with a practiced eye.  Artea suddenly felt glad that all his precious items were on his person.  The thief withdrew three fry pans and launched them at the blue chest.  They hit with ringing clangs.  Nonetheless, the chest did not budge from the stairs.  "Stubborn little bastard isn't it?" M'hana muttered.  

"Fireball!" Guy shouted.  Flames erupted from his ring and spread over the distance to the chest in a fiery arc.  In the damp cave air, the fire hissed like an angry cat.  As it rained upon the chest, the hissing grew to a roar.  The chest screeched and shuffled to avoid the flames.  It managed to escape the brunt of the fire, but not before singing itself considerably.

Finally Artea concluded his incantation.  His staff lit with a bluish silver aura.  The temperature in the cave lowered several degrees.  Guy shivered as the exquisite Ice Queen materialized.  Proud and tall, she smiled benevolently at Artea.  Her hair shone silver, and her radiant skin seemed alight with a mysterious blue aura.  Shining ice diamonds, her eyes gleamed with wisdom accrued over many years.  She stretched out her hand to the treasure chest.  As she did so, several snowflakes drifted from her palm.  They flew on unseen wind currents and brushed against Artea's cheek, bringing with them the taste of the outside air.  Countless memories pierced Artea's chest with longing that he could scarcely have articulated had he tried.  The Ice Queen wove her spell and sent it at the treasure chest.  She spoke in a voice that was as fierce as a blizzard.  Frost appeared on the treasure chest's lid.  As the queen's voice grew in intensity, the frost spread.  Before long, the entire chest was enclosed in a block of silvery-blue ice.  The Ice Queen, her business complete, bowed to Artea.  He returned the bow.  Then the Ice Queen vanished, leaving behind her a blast of chilly air that made the party's capes flap about like the wings of birds in flight.

"That was impressive, elf," M'hana piped up.  "Almost as spectacular as that spell you nearly killed me with."

Artea ignored her and walked to the treasure chest to inspect the Ice Queen's handiwork.  Once there, the elf gasped.  The treasure chest was completely encased in enchanted ice.  Crisp mountain air still emitted from the ice block.

Guy laughed at the fate his great enemy, the living treasure chest, had met.  "That'll teach you to snap at me," he gloated.  He drew back his foot and gave the frozen chest a swift kick.  Much to Artea's surprise, the ice did not shatter at the impact of Guy's booted foot.  Instead, the chunk of ice – treasure chest and all – slid across the packed dirt floor like a glob of melting butter.  The ice did not break until it smashed into the wall with a sound like shattering glass.  Artea smiled.  The way to the stairs was clear now!  

Suddenly Guy cried out with dismay.  When the ice had broken, the evil blue treasure chest had indeed fallen to ruin.  Its heavy wood was in splinters, and even its lacquer had undergone considerable chipping.  The lid was completely detached from the box.  However, thick black smoke was pouring from the chest and gathering in the center of the room.

"What _is that thing?" Guy gasped.  The warrior unsheathed his sword._

"I don't know yet," Artea remarked.  "But I'd rather not find out.  Hurry!"  The elf dashed to the stairs.  However, the smoke drifted to the stairs as if it could understand the elf's intentions.  Artea jumped back from the cloud as if it posed as great a danger as the live treasure chests.

"Since when are you so jumpy?" M'hana scoffed.

"Get down!" Artea shouted, waving his arms wildly.  The elf flung himself to the ground and covered his head with both hands.  Guy looked at the elf as if he had gone completely mad but followed his example.  M'hana, however, remained standing as the cloud solidified.  

Out of the roiling black depths stepped a monster that easily stood as tall as Guy.  Gold-trimmed blue robes tied with a red sash wound around its considerable girth.  Despite its size, the creature carried a magical staff that blazed with yellow fire.  Its eyes, the hue of fresh-spilt blood, gleamed from the recesses of its cavernous eye sockets.  Now that the fiend had fully materialized, M'hana could see that it was chanting the last of a spell.  At the last possible second, the thief dropped to the ground, landing on her back.  With a hiss, the robed monster slammed its staff into the ground.  Violent wind set the creature's thick robes billowing.  The flames on its staff hissed and snapped.  M'hana screamed when she saw what the fiend had summoned forth.

{****}

Dekar stared at the splintered handle which he still gripped tightly in his hand.  His mouth opened in dismay.

"Step back, Dekar" Lexis called to him.  "Hurry!  Their counterattack will be swift!"

            Numbed, weaponless, Dekar returned to his companions. 

            "Tia," Lexis said, "prepare a Stronger spell.  I, too, will cast one.  We must keep up our strength."

            Blocking the rather true thoughts that even Lexis's new plan was futile, Tia did as he commanded.  

            "Dekar, check for smoke bombs," Lexis told him, handing him their item bag.  "Look for any daggers or knives, even dirks and short swords too."

            "You have a plan?"

            Lexis nodded sagely.  "_If we can put it into motion…"_

            The dragons did not, as the party had feared, launch a deadly offensive attack.  Instead, the copper dragons cast Courage.  The silver dragons healed the copper whom the party had targeted.  Meanwhile, the gold dragons lounged in the shadows, not contributing anything to the fight.  If anything, the golden dragons seemed more interested in leering at the humans and in laughing at them through their teeth.  

"Why aren't they attacking?" Tia whispered to Lexis.  She could not remember feeling more alive, even though her life hovered on the brink of ending.  

"I suppose the dragons have been in here for millennia, to judge from the dust.  Apparently they wish to toy with us before they obliterate us…and return to their monotonous vigil in the dark."

            Suddenly the hordes of dragons' attacks came to a halt.  An eerie silence filled the vast chamber.           

"Now Tia!" Lexis shouted.  

            "Stronger!"  She had specifically targeted Dekar.  The spell restored some of the color to his face.

            "Stronger!" Lexis cast his spell and healed the entire party.

            Dekar, filled with renewed vigor, rose with a dagger between every finger of his hand.  "I'll teach you to break my sword," he muttered.  He hurled the knives at the copper dragon on whose armor his sword had broken.  Like spinning pinwheels, the knives shot through the air with a hum.  Just before they struck, they erupted in golden fire.  Dekar lunged to one side, thinking the golden flames were part of the dragon's counterstroke.  When he looked up, however, the copper's screams made the ground quaver.  Black blood gushed from the wyrm's eye sockets.

            Dekar met Lexis's unbelieving eyes with his own.  "What happened?" he mouthed.

            "Tia," Lexis said.

            Dekar glanced at the blue-haired woman just in time to glimpse the fading shine about her hands, both of which were cupped around her precious jewel.

            "Get ready for the next wave!" Lexis shouted.  "I'll cast Stronger!  Dekar, work with Tia's magic!  We may break free of this chamber yet!"

{****}

Twin thunder beasts appeared simultaneously.  They circled the ceiling of the small room, popping and sizzling like the embers of a fire.  When they caught sight of the party, their growls shook the walls and floors.  A blue lightning ball formed in the mouth of one.  In the other's maw, the electric orb had a green cast to it.  With an explosion that flung Artea, Guy, and M'hana against the wall, the lightning barrage smashed home.  

Artea was the first to rise.  "Hurry!" he urged Guy.  "We must make haste before they attack again!  I've heard legends of this monster before," the elf added.  "It's an archfiend, one of the strongest magic-users we'll encounter in the entire cave!"

"Oh great," Guy said.  "I think I'm going to have a few bruises before this is over!"

"_You're going to have a few bruises," M'hana muttered from the floor.  She blinked warily, still seeing flashbulb explosions against her eyelids.  She pulled the pot that served as her helmet over her eyes as if to block the light._

"I'll cast Stronger; it looks like we'll need it," Artea said.  He eyed the Thunder Beasts warily.  They were circling again.  The archfiend was once more bent over his staff.  His chanting was almost inaudible.  Nonetheless, his aura was palpable, for his robes had started to flutter again.  The spiky tufts of hair atop his head, too, swayed as if pushed by a gentle breeze.  "Guy, you should attack."

Guy bit his lip.  "But Artea…  If I'm right there when he unleashes his spell…"

"Don't worry about it," Artea said.  "I won't let anything happen to you.  We have a miracle.  I _will_ use it if need be.  We're all going to make it to the bottom of this!  I promise you!"

Guy smiled uncertainly.  "Okay, Artea," he said.  "I'm going to trust in you for this one."  The blonde warrior gripped his sword a little tighter, focusing power into both the blade and the thrust with which he would propel it.

"M'hana, get up," Artea urged her.

M'hana raised an eyebrow.  "I think I'll sit this one out," she said with a self-satisfied smirk.  "We'll see how the two of you fare against the legendary archfiend."

Artea muttered an elven oath under his breath before he began the incantation for Stronger.  

Because of the delay, Guy charged the magician before Artea completed his spell.  As he approached, it appeared that he would strike the monster head-on.  However, by some devilry of the archfiend, his blade flew too far to the left.  Guy only grazed the mage's arm and sliced through his fine robes.  The mage drew back his staff, which flared with bright flames.  Guy gasped and attempted to scramble out of the way.  However, the fiend's red eyes held him fast.  Motionless, Guy could only watch in horror until the flaming staff struck him.  He fell to his knees, barely able to remain upright, even leaning on his sword.  The monster resumed chanting his spell in his low voice.  Artea, his sharp elven ears still managing to pick up the sound, shouted for Guy to look out.  Guy, however, was still reeling from the magician's previous attack.  This next spell, too, caught him head-on.  Guy screamed as he was launched backwards on a wave of gray fire.

"Guy!" Artea shouted, his incantation both interrupted and forgotten.  With great effort, Artea helped his fallen comrade to his feet.  Guy swayed a little bit, his skin raw from the burning he had received.  In certain patches of his armor that had borne the brunt of the mage's attack, the steel rings had melted.  The elf glared at M'hana with near hatred in his eyes.  Before M'hana could say anything to him, the two Thunder Beasts in the air trumpeted their challenge.  Lightning razed the ground.  Artea wondered briefly if the thunder beasts would smash all the way through and enable party to simply drop through to the next floor.

Artea was about to scald M'hana with an elven tirade – how could the thief be so useless at such an important time? – when she tossed a vial at him.  Artea recognized it as a potion that would restore his magical energies.  He gulped it and flung the bottle away.  With renewed energies, the words to every spell came to him faster.  He quickly cast a curative spell that restored the color to Guy's cheeks.  "I want you to attack the arch fiend again," Artea said to Guy.  Guy opened his mouth to protest, but Artea's iron tone left no room for argument.  

The warrior once again focused his attack and charged at his opponent.  This time, Artea sent the zap spell into Guy's sword.  A blinding flash lit the chamber, sending the Thunder Beasts screeching and flapping frantically.  Beneath the arch fiend, a circle opened that would chain him to one spot.  Sparks cascaded from Guy's sword as he clove through the monster's tough skin.  As the warrior's sword split through the mage's skin, dazzling white light erupted from the blade.  When he had completed his swing, Guy sprang nimbly backwards.  The arch fiend gurgled, and the fire that surrounded its staff dimmed.  Kneeling, the monster began yet another incantation.  The Thunder Beasts growled and hovered protectively over their caller.

"I think this is as close as we're going to get to victory," M'hana remarked from her almost relaxed position on the ground.  

As much as he disliked admitting it, Artea had to agree with her.  He motioned to Guy, and the three of them hurried down the stairs, Guy first, Artea second, and M'hana bringing up the rear.  

{****}

Another round of battle passed much in the same fashion as before.  The only difference was in the copper dragon, which did not attack, but spent the duration of the round furiously clawing at his eyes.  This time when Dekar flung his shower of daggers, he aimed for the wyrm's breast, Tia's spell turning the wheeling daggers into blue circles of fire in midair.  These were able to pierce the dragon's armor, though not very deeply.  They continued to burn, even after they had lodged themselves into the beast's chest.

            "We _need a smoke bomb!" Lexis said anxiously._

            "Too bad," Dekar said.  "We don't have one.  I've looked twice."

            Lexis closed his eyes as if offering a final prayer to a deity unknown.  "I have a bad feeling about this battle though."

            "Why?  They're not doing anything differently," Dekar pointed out.

            Lexis paused, listening to the familiar strains of Dread and Courage chanted by innumerable dragon tongues.  "We must cast some defensive spells _now_!"

            "We'll forfeit our chance to attack if we do that now!" Dekar said.  "Think about it, Lexis!"

            "No!  Do it!  Tia, cast courage!" Lexis directed.

            Tia did so, wondering like Dekar if the strain of battle had clouded Lexis's mind.

            No sooner had Tia and Lexis wrapped the party in courage than the blinded copper dragon counterattacked.  In a single breath, he unleashed his fury at those who dared to hurt him, to blind him!  White fire leaped from his great maw.  Despite his lack of eyes, the dragon had no difficulty in targeting.  The man-stink of the daggers was cue enough to direct his ire straight at Dekar!

            "Dekar!"  Lexis shouted his warning too late.

A white pillar of billowing heat and light engulfed the warrior, drowning even his scream.  The blaze was so intense that it illumined the four corners of the vast chamber.  From Dekar the dragon fire jumped back to swallow the copper himself.  

{****}

Before M'hana could reach the bottom, she stumbled and fell down the remaining stairs.  Her sack flew through the air, sending Iris treasures bouncing and clattering down the stairs.  "Ugh," M'hana muttered, managing, with some effort, to pick herself up.  She scrambled to retrieve her precious treasures, scuttling about like an over-sized crab that gotten a cook pot stuck on its head.  

Suddenly color blazed from the Iris treasures.  The famed relics of the rainbow had always ensnared what light there was to be caught, glimmering and shining like fiery new stars.  Always this beauty was intrinsic, trapped within each treasure like a flower under glass.  Now, however, this interred radiance seeped forth and overflowed.  M'hana's eyes, long accustomed to glittery baubles and bejeweled objects, actually smarted if she tried to stare at them for too long.  It was like looking at a rainbow cloaked in sunlight.  Shielding her eyes, M'hana gasped and dug into her pack.  The treasures there were also caught in the enchantment as it seemed.  They were blinding to behold. 

"What's happening?" she whispered.  "Elf, is this your doing?" she snapped.

"Of course not!" Artea shouted back, wondering for the umpteenth time why he had ever proposed that this thief come with him and Guy.  "Look!"  The elf shaded his eyes and raised his ring hand.  The Iris ring glistened, illuminating the stairwell as if the sun itself had descended.  

"What does it mean?" Guy wondered aloud.  Suddenly the warrior's eyes grew wide.  Sweat beaded on Guy's forehead.  A similarly mysterious lapse of strength seemed to take place in Artea.

M'hana watched in puzzlement as Artea and Guy looked at one another.  They both looked as stricken as if they had learned that Doomsday would ensue in an hour.

"Artea, did you feel it too?" Guy asked.  His hands were shaking; he gripped his sword to steady them.

"Yes, I did."  Artea closed his eyes and sighed deeply.  "…Something has happened…to someone…"

"What?"  M'hana scowled, squinting against the vibrant light of the Iris treasures.

Artea opened his eyes, speaking with undeniable conviction.  "One of our comrades in the other party has fallen."

{**********************************************************************************************************}

Sorry for the long wait, everyone.  I _do_ hope no one strangled while hanging from that nasty ole cliff…  

This time's cliff: Let's see if I can overcome my procrastinating nature and update in a decent amount of time…consistently!!!  (Just kidding…this really is something I'm going to strive for…as best as I can…around relatives…and vacations…and hurricanes…and the earth spinning…'nuff said.)


	10. Death and Resurrection

Chapter Ten: Death and Resurrection

            "_Dekar!"  Tia's cry cut the copper's dying call short.  Tears streamed down her face.  Her rainbow jewel winked furiously.  Then a shine engulfed its every facet in radiance.  Open-mouthed, Lexis backed away from her._

            As the jewel's resonating aura grew brighter, Tia's sobs quieted.  Her eyes' luster faded.  It was as if she stared into fathomless nothingness.  "Dekar…  _No_!" Tia screamed in a voice that was not at all her own.  A wave of power exploded from her body, setting her hair and dress to billowing in the windless chamber.  Sorrow in her face melted away to rage.  Lexis's stomach dropped.  Never had he seen Tia so furious.

            Tia then spoke words of arcane that left the scientist dumbfounded – and there were few languages that evaded his grasp.  They rattled like bones upon bones and rasped like the threats of ancient, bitter women.  When she had concluded her incantation, Tia closed her eyes.  The jewel blazed white from every facet.  A wave formed of every color of the spectrum crashed out of the gem, striking every dragon in the fearsome circle with a sound as furious as the splitting of earth from earth.  Ghostly rainbow mist held the dragons suspended.  At the slight crooking of Tia's fingers, an orb, pulsating, living, humongous materialized at the center of the circle.  Lightning hummed and hissed at its edges.  Like the opaque wave from before, the orb and its lightning were tinted in the brilliance of the rainbow.  The lightning's frenzied dance grew more and more frantic.  The orb trembled, and a rumbling shook the stale air.  The dragons' eyes closely followed the sphere.  Lexis felt a pall descend upon his heart.  The ancient wyrms feared this strange new magic which was Tia's to command. 

            Tia whispered yet another sentence of enchantment, whereupon the orb broke apart.  The rainbow storm broke upon the dragons in a flash of white.  Dragon screams filled the air as the power of the jewel charred their flash.  Fountains of black blood flooded the hall.

{****}

            "How do you know the fate of your companions with such certainty?" M'hana questioned Artea.  "It completely defies common sense!  You even said yourself that your comrades entered separately."

            "It's not really a power that's based in common sense," Guy said defensively.  "Artea and I share a powerful bond with our comrades."

"It is of an almost magical nature," Artea added,  "which is why can easily transcend barriers like those that we perceive in the physical world."

"You know, if it had been Maxim or Selan down there, we would have known which one of them had fallen," Guy mused.  

"True," Artea agreed.  "But I can't figure it out…  I guess because neither Lexus, nor Tia, nor even Dekar has strong enough ki for us to really discern whether it died out."

Guy chuckled to himself.  "I'm going to have to tell Dekar that one.  Won't he be surprised?  Strongest man in the world, yet lacking noticeable ki."

Artea looked at Guy almost in revulsion.  "How do you know he isn't the one who fell?" the elf snapped at him.

Guy's eyes widened to the point where he almost looked stricken.  "Oh gods," he said.  "I didn't think…"

"Obviously.  Let's go," Artea said with brisk disgust.  He stalked down the corridor at a swift pace.  Guy, more inclined to brood after the crass thing he had said, fell behind.  M'hana, for a change, kept pace with the elf.

"Can't you dim those?" Artea asked M'hana irritably as he caught sight of her glowing pack.

"No more than you can douse yours," M'hana said bleakly.  Her threadbare pack poorly eclipsed the light of the Iris treasures.  "Maybe," M'hana suggested with a snide look at Artea, "you should stash your ring away."

"And risk having you steal it?" Artea countered.  "Not a chance!"

"Dammit," M'hana muttered.

A racket like a full suit of armor clanking down a flight of stairs rang in both of their ears.  It was Guy, hurrying to catch up with them.  "Artea, there's something following us!" 

The elf's violet eyes narrowed.  "Do you have any idea what it could be?"  His hand shot to his bow.

Guy looked imploringly from M'hana to Artea.  "You're going to think I'm crazy," he said at last.  "But it was that archfiend from up above.  I know it's impossible because monsters just don't follow you down the stairs.  But I saw the twin Thunder Beasts it summoned!  I swear it!"

"I believe you, Guy," Artea said reassuringly.  "I have heard of strangely intelligent monsters that can teleport and cast advanced magical spells.  Sometimes they learn of Providence from travelers they attack.  They then teleport inside of treasure chests to look for Providence and progress through each floor, preying on adventurers and other monsters."  
            "If any monster fits the description, it was that one we fought," Guy said.  "Twin thunder beasts!  I haven't even seen _you_ cast that spell before, Artea."

"And the archfiend was trapped inside of a living treasure chest," M'hana added.  "I wonder how it managed to move upwards though…not that it's really important.  The point is that it's _here _chasing after us."

"What should we do?" Guy asked Artea.  "I don't think I can fight that thing again.  And it certainly didn't look like it was slowing down the last time I saw it."

"We'll have to hurry," Artea said.  "That is really the only course we have, if we wish to lose it."

"There's one problem," Guy pointed out.  "All it has to do is look for these lights," he gestured at the Iris treasures, "and it will have a clear lead to follow."

"That's a chance we'll have to take," M'hana said brusquely.  "There's no way I'm leaving four years of my life to shine on the seventy-fourth floor of this stinking hell.  Besides…"  She leered at Artea.  "I'm certain that your elf friend is much too attached to his ring to leave it here.  Lust for riches is rare among the elves, as I understand it.  However, Iris treasures merit a special…exception...even in passionless races"

Artea's temper flared.  He despised the thief for being right, even if only a little bit.  "If we can turn a suitable number of corners, the light won't shine where the arch fiend can see it."

"Ah, but that's assuming we know which corners to turn," M'hana said and shifted the weight of her pack.

"Speed will more than make up for that," Artea said.  "We'll see if you can keep up, thief."

{****}

            Her spell completed, Tia sank to her knees.  Meanwhile, the dragons began to die.  First fell the coppers and the then the silvers.  Tia's eyes did not return to normal, however.  Lexis swallowed and gently touched her shoulder.  "Tia, we can leave in safety now."  The words rang heartless and hollow in her ears.

            "No," Tia said in a harsh tone.  "There is one whom you have forgotten.  I will not leave without him."

            "A miracle won't work if there is no body for the soul to return to," Lexis said.  "Come, Tia.  Dekar is irretrievable.  We must _go now!"  Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the gold dragons.  They had withstood even Tia's spell.  They were gathering, injured but not defeated.  Murder shone in their eyes.  To the intruders who had killed their kin, the gold dragons would grant no quarter._

            "Fool," hissed Tia.  "Make your escape if it pleases you.  I'll not leave him behind."  Again Tia began to chant words that Lexis could not fathom.  He looked to the hall ahead, empty of copper and silver dragons and back again to the woman who was and was not Tia.  He started to cross the distance alone but paused, torn.

            Tia's spell this time materialized only as pale white smoke.  It drifted past the dragons to the place where Dekar had fallen.  Lexis could not look away from the sight.  Before his very eyes, Dekar's body – the grisly remains of it – was mending.  

            First Dekar's skeleton rose from the ground.  Wrapped in the smoke, the skeleton hovered above the ground.  The blackened skull was sightless; what remained of the skeleton was pathetic.  Slowly the other bones assembled in their proper places beneath the skull.  Lexis took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, not believing what he was seeing.  Tia barked another command at Dekar's remains.  The skeleton, for the most part as dark as its cavernous eye sockets, began to shimmer.  Slowly the ash fell away, leaving every bone moon white.  Tiny particles, like pinpoints of stars twinkled around the restored skeleton.  The work they did was subtle but swift.  Before Lexis could blink, organs filled the chasms between bones.  And still Tia droned, the language of her spell rising in pitch.  Six blinks and red muscles eclipsed the pure white of Dekar's bones.  Like rivers of blood, they gleamed and rippled, almost alive.  Finally appeared what resembled a cloth banner.  It wrapped around Dekar's naked muscles, concealing them.  

            All through the restoration of Dekar's body, Lexis had watched, transfixed.  In that brief, yet lengthy time, however, the gold dragons had begun to cross the distance to them.  Blood drained from Lexis's face.  Tia concluded her spell with a flourish.  Dekar's body, just as he had left it, lay cold and lifeless on the ground.  Tia crossed her arms and looked at Lexis expectantly.  At the chill in her glare, Lexis's skin crawled.  He reached into their item bag and withdrew a miracle.  He upended the blue bottle over Dekar's body, conscious all the while that the gold dragons were getting closer.  Dekar jerked upright with a gasp as if he had been submerged in a bottomless lake of icy waters.

            "Finally," Tia said with a voice still not her own.  "I've about had it with this place."  She spoke one final incantation, a short, simple one.  A brief sensation of disorientation flickered through Lexis's body.  When it passed, he gasped.  The party had miraculously crossed the hall.  The stairs were in sight!  Lexis could have wept for sheer relief.  When he looked back, the fire of the golden dragons flared like the light of a thousand fireflies.  Despite the sudden distance that had opened between them, the vengeful wyrms had not forgotten the party. 

            "Fool!" Tia snarled at Lexis.  "Run!" she commanded, all but pushing him and Dekar down the stairs.  Almost reckless, she bounded down the staircase, paying no heed to its structural integrity.  Lexis supporting Dekar on one shoulder somehow managed to stumble down the grand staircase, hurrying like a contender in a hellacious three-legged race.  At the bottom, Lexis could see Tia fairly bursting with impatience.  Gulping breath after painful breath, Lexis finally managed to lug himself and Dekar to the bottom.  Once there, he felt compelled to look back.  Up and up and up went the stairs, a wide frayed ribbon wound about a crystal column.  Easily this was the longest flight of stairs the party had descended in the entire dungeon.  

            "Examine your calculations, Scientist," Tia said, her voice dripping with scorn.  "You will find that we have indeed reached the one-hundredth floor, or rather, the wings of its stairs."

            At the mention of the one-hundredth floor, some of the tension drained from Dekar and Lexis's faces.

            "But…Tia…you aren't Tia, are you?" Dekar whispered.  These were the first words he had spoken since his miraculous restoration.

            Tia's distant eyes clouded over, but she said nothing.  Instead, she stared at her beloved jewel.  

            _The jewel, Lexis thought, __must be a container for the spirit of a mage.  __That would explain many things.  Yet what mage commands such power – a wave that obliterates and a spell that restores a shattered body?_

            "Tia," Lexis finally mustered his courage to interrupt.  "Just who are you?"

            "I'll not tell.  Foolish humans, questioning all that is!  Can you not simply give thanks and accept the way things are?  Control was never meant to be yours, so why do you pursue it?" Tia sounded angry enough to unleash her wave attack from the floor before.  Before Lexis could answer, Tia said, "I'll return your precious 'Tia' to you for now.  But mind you, Lexis Shaia…  We shall meet again!"  

{**********************************************************************************************************}


	11. Mysteries of the Jewel

            _"I'll return your precious 'Tia' to you for now.  But mind you, Lexis Shaia…  We shall meet again!"  _

Chapter Eleven: Mysteries of the Jewel

With those words, Tia convulsed violently.  Lexis, fearing some new evil, let her fall.  Tia barely caught herself in time to keep from toppling over.  She blinked, and the color drained from her face.  "H…how did we get here?" she whispered, not quite to the others, nor quite to herself either.  "The dragons…are they…?"  Looking up, she noticed Dekar and Lexis staring at her.  "Oh no!  Tell me what happened!  Did I cast another spell we don't have a scroll for?"  Lexis did not answer.  Tia looked from Lexis to Dekar frantically.

            "Do you mean to say that you don't remember _anything_?" Lexis asked her at last.

            "_No!" Tia retorted.  "And why _should _I recall anything if you won't even drop a hint to remind me?"  Fear tinged Tia's exasperation.  "I have fought beside you for almost one hundred floors.  I have drawn blood and lost my own!"  Tia put her hands on her hips.  "What could I have done that was so terrifying after all that?  What __now could possibly mortify me?  Or the two of you, for that matter?"  A slight tinkling, like tiny crystal bells, cut her tirade short.  Tia, Dekar, and Lexis looked down to see…_

            "My jewel…" Tia whispered.  She picked it up from the dungeon floor tenderly.  "It is something to do with this jewel, isn't it?"

            "Whatever gave you that idea?" Lexis asked.

            Tia held up the jewel for the scientist's inspection.  

            Lexis gasped.  The once radiant gem had turned the sickly hue of a bloated corpse.  Along its facets glistened shiny tracks which resembled rotted hair.  Lexis's heart thundered in his ears.

            "I had no wish to frighten you, Tia," he at last managed to say.  "But the fact is that this jewel is controlling you.  I would venture to say that some force from within it is using you for its own purposes."

            Tia shuddered, but her grip on the gem did not falter.  "That may be," she said at last.  "Yet it is also possible that the jewel has expended the last of its power.  Look!  Its light is dead and gone."

            Lexis understood with dismay that Tia held firm to her conviction.  "The jewel still holds you in its thrall," Lexis warned her.  "So long as you desire it as you do, I _will not _concede that it is powerless."  Lexis was angry now, shouting without really knowing why.  Tia's eyes filmed over with tears.  Unable to bear the sight, Lexis helped Dekar to a place against the dungeon wall.  Turning from Dekar and Tia, he said, "I have a map to make…and some calculations to figure."  Then he stiffly added, "Dekar, you should stay here with Tia.  Don't wander off.  The other Tia told me that this is the one-hundredth floor.  If that is the case, we should meet Guy and Artea quite soon." 

            "The _other _Tia?" Tia whispered in disbelief.  Mechanically she knelt beside Dekar.  "What terrible wounds," she whispered.  "Whatever happened to you, Dekar?  Oh…  Why can't I remember anything?"  For an instant the cave corpse's warning echoed in her mind.  "Dekar, is it true that this jewel makes me into a different 'Tia'?  Am I a bad person because of it?  What is the 'other me' like?"

            Silent for a minute, Dekar managed a half-grimace, half-smile.  "Lexis is afraid of the other Tia's power," he said.  "Do you want to know where my wound came from?" he asked.

            "Yes!  Tell me!" Tia exclaimed.

            "I'm not sure if you'll believe it," Dekar remarked.  "In fact, I'm kinda skeptical about it myself, even though it _happened to me."_

            "Well?"  Impatient, Tia crossed her arms.

            "When we were fighting the dragons, one of them breathed on me."

            Wide-eyed, Tia clapped both hands over her mouth.  "Im…impossible!  You must be lying!  Dragon fire destroys the body beyond repair!"

            With an effort, Dekar gently took Tia's trembling hands in his.  "Wait.  There's more to the story.  The dragon did indeed kill me.  I felt my spirit detach from this cage of flesh…  Hovering above the battle, I saw the jewel shine like fire…and from its flames emerged another Tia."

            Tia's grip on Dekar's hands tightened.  "Go on," she said in a quavering tone.

            "The other Tia cast a spell that restored my ashes, a healing that bound my organs and severed sinews back into my flesh…  When she had completed this spell, she cast a second one that drew my soul back.  The only wound that remains is this terrible one on my left side."

            "No," Tia whimpered.  She let go of Dekar's hands and drew the jewel from her travel pouch.  "I do not _want _to believe you…  But I remember your death…I watched the dragon fire consume you!"  Tia broke off.  "Yet I can no more part with this jewel than deny that you live…"

            Dekar placed a finger gently to her lips.  "Tia, I agree with Lexis that this jewel, your attachment to it, and especially the powers that it bestows are unnatural.  But…this different power restored me from death.  For that reason, I cannot completely distrust it.  Whatever it is, it wanted me to _live_.  I owe it my life."

            Biting her lip, Tia tried not to let the tears spill over.

            "Also, the jewel is 'another you.'  It works through you to realize its wishes.  And you are yourself, if you know what I mean…"  Dekar flushed and quickly tried to smother it with a grunt of pain.  "I believe in you and your power, even if it is hidden…  As you should!"

            Before Tia could comprehend the warrior's words, he pulled her face close to his.  Their lips met for an instant before Tia pulled away as rapidly as if she had been scalded.  Her eyes widened with astonishment; his lingered on her tenderly.

            "Tia…in Parcelyte I told you that you would find happiness.  Have you found it on this journey?"

            Tia's cheeks felt as if torches lit them from within.  "I…I…" she sputtered.

            "What makes you happiest, Tia?"  It was a question which he did not intend for her to answer.  "When you find that thing, whatever it is, you should use your life to pursue it.  Once you catch it, you will find contentment that will endure to the end of your days."

            "Dekar," Tia said, finding her voice at last.  "How do you know this?"  Her other question remained unspoken.  What had the warrior's kiss meant?

            "I died, Tia, and I returned to life."  Dekar's eyes became glassy and his breathing became ragged.  "At the end of life, one finds wisdom the living spend their lifetimes discovering."

            Tia smiled faintly.  "You _must be hurt, Dekar, if you're speaking this way."  _

"Hey," Dekar protested indignantly.  "What's _that supposed to mean?"_

Despite what she had said, Tia could not deny the truth in the warrior's words.  She took out her blanket from her pack and covered him with it.  "Sleep well," she said.

            Tia leaned against the wall, as had been her habit in the cave, both when she needed to think, and when she wished to sleep.  _Dekar kissed me!  And he was talking as intelligently as Artea!  He must be out of it.  So that means the kiss, too, was out of it…  Somehow that did not sound quite right.  And yet Tia wondered if the attentions of the warrior were really what she wanted.  _Dekar spoke of happiness, of finding it.  There must be some truth to that, _she thought.  _I wonder what there is that makes me happy enough to dedicate my life to it…  In the old days I would have said "being Maxim's wife" without hesitating. But now…  Oh, I just don't know!  _Tia closed her eyes, her heart beating faster.  __Lexis and Dekar both say there is 'another me' appearing…  I wish…  Exhaustion set into Tia's thoughts and terminated them with sleep._

            Lexis, having just finished his calculations, returned from his self-imposed exile.  He looked at Tia's vulnerable slumbering form, sighed, and opened up his log.

Excerpt from Lexis Shaia's log

Today has made me certain.  Tia's jewel, or more appropriately, the presence within it, is possessing her.  Thus far these incidents have been positive.  Under the other influence, Tia has saved the party from certain defeat at the hands of several hundred dragons, long-time denizens of the cave.  Additionally, she has resurrected Dekar's body, which appeared to be irretrievably shattered by dragon fire.  Despite the obvious benefits of the presence, I wonder what it entails for Tia.  Is she going to be absorbed into the jewel?  Will she ever be able to control this entity?  I fear for the girl, especially when I see her this way, asleep and vulnerable.  Earlier when I challenged the presence, she told me that the party now stands on the one-hundredth floor.  I have just affirmed that she was correct.  Though the spirit hasn't been hostile, I fear this fourth member of our party.  It knows _so_ much, just how much I am uncertain.  Unfortunately there is little I can do about it.  Although the jewel's light has died, I fear that the entity within is only toying with us, trying to get Dekar and especially me to lower our guard.  Perhaps these are the fears of a weary man who has just stared into death's one thousand eyes.  For the moment I can only commit these cares to the morrow.  

{*********************************************************************************************************}  

A thousand apologies for that indecent wait.  I have found that packing for college is no mean feat.  For that matter, preparing for college in general is a big pain!  I'm snatching moments whenever I can, yet time is short!  Too short!  Where does it all go?


	12. Dreams

Chapter Twelve: Dreams

            Fire!  Searing and sizzling, the red flames licked at her clothes and hair.  Tia stumbled through the choking black smoke.  To her dismay, she was completely disoriented.  A few stumbling steps more and her head collided with something as hard as granite.  Tia reached out for what had hit her.  It was a shining full-length mirror, a pillar of ice in the midst of this blazing hell.  Tia stared at her reflection dizzily.  It almost appeared that her reflection was moving of its own accord.  Perhaps the smoke was confusing her.  Then she realized exactly where she and the fire were: inside of her own house.  _But that's impossible! _her mind protested.  Then she noticed something even more terrifying than her mysterious exit from the Ancient Cave.  

Dirt and tears along with various mismatched pieces of armor rendered Tia's pink dress almost unrecognizable.  However, the Tia in the mirror looked as fresh as a pink rose gracing a tall glass vase.  Shame-faced, Tia touched her own disheveled hair.  Firelight flickered behind her, eating away her old life.  Tia in the mirror came closer, while her disheveled twin watched, enthralled.  Slowly the flames crept closer, consuming all they touched.  Around the mirror and the two Tia's, they parted, forming a circle with deadly boundaries.  Tia in the mirror walked up to the very glass of the mirror and spread her hands as if she were parting a curtain.  Alarmed, Tia took a step away.  At once she was conscious of the roar of the flames behind her back.  

            With deliberate, almost stalking movements, the pristine reflection of Tia stepped forth from the mirror and into the circle of fire.  Soundless, she glided towards her twin.  Tia could only stare as her not quite reflection advanced on her.  Tia from the mirror appeared just as she had within.  However, in the flame-curtained room, her eyes glistened and shimmered like the facets of an exquisitely-crafted gem.  What was more, each facet blazed with every color ever formed.

            "You…" Tia stammered, her thoughts turning at once to her prized prism.  "You're the other Tia!"

            The girl's eyes flashed with contempt.  She looked Tia up and down and snorted derisively.  "How dare you?" she challenged Tia in a voice much different from Tia's own.  "I see before me a battered warrior-wish-to-be, originally weepy shopkeeper.  You reek like a goat, your hair needs combing – how dare you address me as if I were you, yourself?"

            Tia's temper flared.  "Well, you're little better than a capsule monster, dropping in whenever you please!"  It felt odd yelling at herself.  

            "I am there to guide you when you need it," the other Tia retorted.  "Without me, Dekar would have died.  Perhaps all of you would have."

            Before Tia could think on what her other self had imparted, the jewel Tia said, "There is a reason for our meeting.  Soon it will fall to you to make the wishes upon the cup.  Will you restore Selan, knowing she is your greatest rival for your love?"

            Tia gasped.  She had often pondered how it would be if Maxim, her childhood friend and first love, could return to life.  Often she thought that simply his being alive would be enough for her.  However, hearing her other self talk, Tia realized anew her other, more selfish reason for agreeing to enter the Ancient Cave.  It was true that she had sought to cure her Wanderlust.  Nevertheless…

            It was as if her other self perceived her thoughts.  "Think of it, Tia.  After you restored Dekar to life, ah his kiss still burns your lips, I see.  Well, it is only a matter of time before the blossom of his love flowers.  So could it be with Maxim, only more powerfully intoxicating…for you would not need _me to wish for his restoration."_

            Tia did not answer for a moment, entangled in the smooth, convincing words of the other Tia.  Before she could lose herself entirely in temptation, a gravelly voice grated in her head.  _This cave recognizes the faint of heart.  Be strong in your resolve, or the cave shall eat you alive!_

            "NO!" Tia cried out and broke free of her reverie.  "You might be an adroit pretender, but you don't know my heart!  You can never _become me, no matter how you persevere!  I am Tia, and you are the 'other Tia'!  Why not reveal your true intentions now, 'other me'?  You didn't care about Dekar at all!  You just-"_

            The other Tia hissed low in her throat, much like an angry cat.  "How do _you_ know about that?  If I am not privy to the whims of your heart, then how are you given divine sight to see what lies in mine?"

            Before Tia could answer, her other self spread her hands wide.  Tia gasped as the fire leapt higher, scorching her with its nearness.  She reeled backwards only to step right into the mirror.  The pillar of glass did not topple as she expected.  Instead, the silvery surface parted as easily as water.  When she tried to step out of the mirror, however, the surface was as hard as glass on her fingertips.  The other Tia put her hands on her hips and smirked.  Then she placed her finger on the mirror's smooth surface.  Tia screamed as a crack ran straight down the center of the mirror in which she was trapped.  Her world split, first in two, then into countless fragments.

{****}

            M'hana leaned heavily on the Iris staff.  She had completely lost track of how many years had passed as she toiled in the Ancient Cave, seeking the final Iris treasure, the one whose existence was disputed even in rumor and legend.  No one had ever held that particular treasure in their hands, and thus, no one was certain of its existence.  For this reason, it was doubly important that she find it.  However, she had been finding white in her hair of late, which disturbed her greatly.  Also her limbs weren't as agile as they used to be.  More frequently, she had to stop to rest.  "But I'll be damned if I'm going to give up now!" M'hana vowed, her voice croaky from disuse.  _Or perhaps old age…  _"Feh."  She pushed _that thought away as fast as she could.  "I can't kick it now," she reminded herself sternly.  "I still have to get the other two treasures that made it to the surface…that elf's ring…and the other one.  No matter how far I have to go…I will be the greatest treasure hunter in the world!"_

            A sudden flash overhead sent the thief running for cover.  Concealed in the shadows, she watched as a young woman with slightly green-tinted hair and a pink dress emerged from the flamboyant warp spell.  M'hana's limbs went weak.  She knew magi when she saw them.  This one looked to be powerful beyond reckoning, even surpassing the arch mage she had fought while still with the elf and his warrior companion.

            "M'hana, self-named treasure hunter!" the woman's voice boomed.  Sweat beaded on M'hana's forehead.  She slowly moved out of the shadows, one hand on her daggers.

            "That really won't be necessary," the woman in pink chided her.  The dagger worked its way loose of the thief's sweaty grasp and floated mockingly to where the mage stood.  "I must say, you're losing your touch."

            "Feh," M'hana snorted.  "I'm almost through with my quest!  Why, I bet with the next treasure chest I find, I'll be done with it.  Then I just have to go up to the surface to find the last two that escaped.  After being in this cave for all these years, the outside world will look like child's play."

            "Really?" the pink-clad mage inquired, a hint of scorn in her voice.  "I should like to accompany you, if I may.  I am curious to see if what you say is true."

            _I'll show her a thing or two, M'hana thought to herself.  __That presumptuous young thing; who's she think she is, anyways?  Strutting around this dungeon dressed for a fair.  Feh.  _

The two women passed through two rooms without saying a word.  Then they reached a small room in which blood red treasure chests lined every walls, leaving barely enough room to walk.  M'hana smirked, certain of her triumph.  "It should be hidden in one of these chests," she said to the woman in pink.  "I don't think I've ever seen so many treasure chests gathered in the same place," M'hana remarked to herself out loud, as had become her habit.  A quick count revealed that the room held twenty treasure chests glistening with crimson and gold.  The woman in pink smiled, a self-satisfied smirk that annoyed M'hana.  The thief quickly began to throw open the lids.  Her shoulders burned from the effort.  When she had completed the first row of five, the thief made her way back along the narrow passage to see what was inside of the chests.  She gasped.  Meanwhile, the woman in pink looked on, a look of confusion on her face.  Enraged, M'hana grabbed the woman's frilly collar and jerked her so that she thudded into the treasure chests.  "What trickery are you playing at, mage?" she snarled.

            The woman in pink laughed in M'hana's face.  "There is no trickery, M'hana."  As the woman spoke the thief's name, M'hana felt a chill skittering up her spine.  "You do not have the strength to hurl me across the room as you wish to, do you?"

            "Don't change the subject!"  M'hana pressed her dagger against the woman's throat.  The thief's violence did not seem to disturb her, however.  "_Where_ are the treasures?" she demanded, gesturing furiously at the empty chests.

            "Unhand me," the woman commanded.  "Or you will never find out."

            Reluctantly M'hana unclenched her grip on the woman's collar.

            "That's better," she said, straightening the white lace primly.  "Now I will tell you what you wish to know.  Your search for the final treasure is futile."

            "What?" M'hana growled.  "How?"

            "Behold!"  A shield appeared in the mysterious mage's hands.  She held it up so that M'hana could see the reflection of her face in its icy depths.  "You feel it every day, do you not?  Your life coursing out with your every breath?  Your time is fast approaching, thief."  She lowered the shield and laughed behind her slender white hand.  "You already have both feet in the grave, do you realize that?"

            "Enough of your wit," M'hana snapped.  She snatched the shield, finding it surprisingly heavy.  "Say what you came to and begone!"

            "Do not deny the truth," the woman warned.  "I know that the question haunts you…every night you ask yourself how much time has passed…and every morning you reassure yourself that you will find the last treasure today.  I warn you, M'hana.  The treasure you seek is beyond even _your greed."_

            M'hana squinted at the shield, only partly listening to the younger woman.  _Why, _she wondered, _can't I see myself in this shield?  Are my eyes that far gone?_

"I have hidden the reflection from you," the woman said.

            M'hana started and dropped the shield.  It crashed atop the lids of the unopened treasure chests.  "You can hear thoughts?" she whispered.

            "And many other things…" the woman said, closing her eyes.  "I hear your heart slowing…  You lack the strength to reach the final treasure, M'hana.  It will _never be yours."_

            "I have no need of strength!" M'hana scoffed.  "Only stealth!"

            "Have you not considered that it takes strength to cross these dungeon floors?" the woman pointed out.

            Shivering overtook M'hana, making her teeth rattle inside of her head like rolling dice.  It _was true that her travels in the cave had become more strenuous and difficult.  She no longer considered fighting anymore, only escaping the ever-present hordes of monsters.  At the end of the day, it was a profound relief to rest, to soothe the fires in her lungs.  Every morning she felt like she was rising from the dead, a mutilated corpse that had lost the elasticity of its muscles and flesh._

            "Look now and see the cruel cards Time has dealt you," the woman said.  

            Helpless, M'hana could only do as she said.  She looked into the icy depths of the shield.  Staring back at her were the  eyes of a frightened old hag.  M'hana gasped; the hag gasped.  M'hana reeled away, unable to look at the sagging skin, the wrinkles, the thinning white hair, the narrow eyes drained of all luster, the rickety fingers that she had raised to her thin lips.  A scream broke from her throat, and then she was falling, falling, falling…

{****}  
            As was common in the strange logic of dreams, Artea found himself standing in the last place he would have chosen to go: Eserikto.  After his undertaking in the Ancient Cave, the elves were no longer his people.  Many had shunned him as early as when he had commenced his research.  Artea did not hold it against them; though long-lived, the elves were stubborn.  Nonetheless, it was eerie to be standing in the middle of his elven village, knowing his current status with them.  Suddenly he wondered how he had gotten there and how his adventure into the Ancient Cave had fared.  Then he noticed the sinister quiet that hung over Eserikto.  Not a single light shone in the elven houses.  It was as if all life had been extinguished.  Artea shivered and took a few hesitant steps forward.  He had the strange sensation that he could not go backwards, no matter what his wishes.  Even his footfalls could not break the stillness.  The silence wrapped around the elf like a hand on his shoulder that he could not shrug off.  

He finally decided to enter one of the houses, though he could not think of why he wished to.  Knowing that this was a dream made the fact a little easier to accept.  He did not even need to open the door.  He passed through the wall as soundlessly as a ghost.  Inside, all was dark and still.  The furniture gleamed, and the floor had been swept.  Yet somehow, the room's very appearance did not look right.  Perhaps it was the knowledge that he would slide right through the furniture if he attempted to touch it.  Perhaps not.  

The elf felt drawn to the bedroom.  He obeyed the mysterious calling, wondering all the while if some portent was latent in this very peculiar dream.  In the center of the bedroom, more real-looking than the rest of the village, stood a mirror.  Its surface was unbroken ice, silver and gleaming with motionless emptiness.  Yet Artea felt it pulling him as surely as he had been pulled into this very house.  He came closer.  In the tall rectangle of dark glass, he cast no reflection, so he stared into the nothingness, seeking something, any flicker of movement.  Suddenly he caught a glimpse of a blue-haired young woman clad in rose pink.  Her eyes were wide with fear.  Looking closer, Artea noticed raging flames behind her.  She did not seem to see him. Artea put his hand on the surface of the mirror.  A shockwave ripped through the glass, making the silvered surface rise and crest like a water wave.  Artea gasped and stepped away just in time.  The mirror exploded into fire-edged star fragments with Tia still in it.  The elf threw up his hands to protect his eyes.  However, one large piece tore deep into his cheek before shattering again on the floor.  Warm blood trickled down his wrists.  Artea reeled away from the mirror and looked at the blood in disbelief.  _Tia…what was she doing in that mirror? the elf wondered frantically.  He raced outside of the empty house filled with the need to find Tia in the dream world.  _

However, a new sight greeted him outside.  Elves, all in the village it seemed, had gathered outside of the.  Their eyes glinted like the fire in the mirror.  Normally a people who would not raise a hand to any living creature, they were armed, every last one of them, even the children.  Artea started.  "What is the meaning of this?" the elf asked.  His kin gave him no answer.  Artea backed into the house.  _I cannot fight them! _he knew.  _They are my people!  Yet from the grim look of them, they were bent on his doom.  Artea watched in horror as their silent ranks closed in on them.  In unison, the elves raised their weapons…_

{****}

            Artea awoke gasping.  The ward wrought of his blue elven fire seared his eyes, bringing tears to them.  Blinking furiously, he sat up.  What had awakened him with such a horrendous jolt?  Suddenly his cheek began to sting.  Artea flinched as he touched the cut.  He had not incurred it in battle, of that he was certain.  When he took his hand away, red stained it.  Then the elf remembered his dream, of armed elves and a mirror that would not show his reflection, only Tia's.  _This cut is from the mirror when it broke, Artea remembered at last.  That something from the dream had carried over into the waking world was disturbing to say the very least.  Nonetheless, the elf's cut did not bother him nearly so much as Tia's appearance in his dream.  _The mirror she was in shattered.  What happened to her?  _Artea wondered if she was the one who had fallen.  The prospect worried him.  Before the elf could think further on the matter, M'hana was at his side.  _

            "Elf…" M'hana said.  "Do you have a mirror handy?"

            "No," Artea replied.  His skin pebbled as he remembered the enormous pane of glass in which Tia had been trapped.  Then he wondered why M'hana wanted to inspect her rather homely reflection in the middle of the night.  However, it was not in his nature to inquire after others, particularly thieves, so he said nothing further about the matter.

            "Damn," M'hana said.  She slinked to Guy's side and deftly slid his shield away from his pack.

            "You better give that back when you're done with it," Artea admonished her.

            M'hana rolled her eyes.  "Really, Elf," she said.  "This is much too large of an item to hide.  Besides-"  The thief yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth.  "I only want it for its reflection."

            Artea watched the thief for another minute before pondering the dream again.  He had no way to prove that Tia had perished.  However, his intuition screamed that a dream that could inflict injuries might have at least a measure of truth to it.

            "Oh gods!  Oh gods!" M'hana whispered incessantly.  She dropped the heavy shield with a clang.

            Guy moaned in his sleep and rolled over.

            "Be silent!" Artea hissed at her.  "Do you want to bring every monster in the dungeon upon us?"  The thief did not answer.  Artea at last looked up.  He gasped at the sight of the thief.  Crows' feet formed webs next to her eyes.  Her cheeks sagged, and deep furrows lined her forehead.  "This can't be happening!" M'hana murmured in her normal voice.  She did not _sound as if she had aged.  The thief pulled off the cook pot that served as her helmet.  Unmistakable white pieces of hair stood out among the rest of her greasy curls like frost.  "That woman didn't lie," M'hana muttered.  She began to jerk out the white hairs one by one.  Artea began to feel a little sick just watching her.  Finally he decided to take the initiative, if for no other reason, to stop her before she went completely bald.  Not that it would matter since the cook pot would cover her bald spots._

            "Did you have a very strange dream just now?" Artea asked M'hana.

            M'hana started.  "_Ow, dammit!"  She blew the stray hair off of her fingers.  "Sure did.  Good gods!" she gasped when she caught sight of Artea's face.  "Maybe you should look into this shield.  You've got-"_

            "I know.  A long cut on my face, right?"  The elf pointed to his cut.  To his dismay, the bleeding still had not stopped.

            "Exactly.  This is weird, you know?  I _dreamed _that I became an old hag," the thief prattled on.  "But I don't feel any older.  What was your dream?"

            "I dreamed that I went back to Eserikto…my home.  It was deserted. Then I went into a house.  I felt drawn to a giant mirror in there.  It was strange because I did not cast a reflection in it.  The mirror exploded, and I got this cut."  Artea spoke with slow detachment, trying to remember anything that might make this strange occurrence make more sense.

            "There doesn't seem to be any connection between the dreams, except for our little souvenir from it," M'hana observed.  

            Artea said nothing.  Though he longed to rush recklessly to the bottommost floor, to do anything to hasten tidings of Tia, a hasty decision this late in the game might well get him and Guy killed.  There was little he could do besides wait.  All the while, a gnawing dread grew inside of him.

{****}

            Tia awoke with a cry.  For a moment she did not know where she was.  Slowly she looked around.  A massive platform rose from the center of the room.  She estimated there must have been one hundred steps before the top of it.  Dekar slept some distance away from her.  His face was peaceful in repose.  Lexis, too, had fallen asleep, hunched over his precious notes.  Tia opened her tight fist.  The rainbow jewel was shining once more with all of its former beauty.  A chill skittered down Tia's back.  The jewel, with its many lovely facets, reminded her of her dream, in which the other Tia's eyes had glittered with similar multihued beauty.  Tia sighed and rubbed at her eyes.  Pain snapped her to alertness, and her heart skipped a beat.  _My face…it hurts!  Gingerly Tia touched her face again.  The flesh was tender, as if she had spent too much time in the sun.  _Impossible_, her rationale argued.  __I haven't been in __the sun!  Then she remembered her dream.  Fire, so hot that its flames were white in places.  That could account for her injuries.  __Yet…how could a dream burn me?  Suddenly Tia was afraid.  The jewel winked at her as if to mock her with its beauty.  Irrationally, Tia knew that the other Tia, the one from the dream, was responsible for the burns.  __The other Tia was angry at me in the dream…  I wonder what else she is going to do to me…_

            Though Tia feared to go to sleep, for the next few days, no dreams came.  She kept busy with analyzing the dream over and over in her mind and watching the stairs for Artea and Guy, who, according to Lexis, were due to arrive any day.  Lexis continued to pore over his notes and maps, scribbling more notes and muttering to himself.  Occasionally he would flip through the whole tome, as if impressed with all the material he had generated for future studying.  Dekar passed the time in uncharacteristic silence.  Tia supposed that his wound was bothering him.  Or perhaps he was pondering his near-death experience.  She could tell that he wasn't in the mood to talk about it, however.  When he wasn't contemplating life and death, Dekar would feed Flash various bits of equipment the party had no intention of using.  The capsule monster had taken to him so much that he would pop out of his capsule unbidden and beg the warrior to feed him.  The little fellow seemed to have an insatiable appetite, though he never grew fatter.  Tia was the capsule's second favorite person, as she was always ready to cradle the warm ball of curly blue hair and rest her head atop his.  Flash made a good pillow for midday thinking.  In addition, his contented chittering was a soothing lullaby when Tia couldn't quiet her thoughts at night.  She began to wonder if Dekar's kiss had been a strange part of her disturbing dream, as the warrior did not speak again of death, nor did he try to kiss her again.

Neither the scientist, nor the warrior mentioned the burns on her face.  She wasn't certain if they had not noticed, or if they simply feared antagonizing her.  In all, it was an unpleasant feeling to be unapproachable.  Though she had been uncomfortable as the weak member of the group, Tia disliked being regarded as powerful and dangerous.  It made for lonely hours she spent wishing she could talk to Dekar and Lexis without their being suspicious.  

            One night, when it seemed that they would rot before meeting Artea and Guy again, Tia glimpsed a hulking shape in the stairwell.  Her pulse quickened.  Instinctively she cast the light spell.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see the rainbow gem flash.  _Could it be the other Tia?  Is she going to ambush us?  _Then she remembered that the other Tia needed her body to come through to the waking realm.  Then she saw how broad the creature was and how tall it stood.  From the staff it carried, she gathered that it was a mage.  Whispered words of enchantment sang in her ears like the soft hissing of snakes.  Blood drained from Tia's face.  "Lexis!  Dekar!" she shouted.  "Wake up!  We're under attack!"


	13. Reunion

Chapter Thirteen: Reunion

            Lexis and Dekar sprang awake at Tia's shout.  However, they were slow enough from sleep for the monster to get in the first strike.  A downpour of gray fire showered from the ceiling.  Amidst the deluge, Tia glimpsed twin Thunder Beasts reeling and soaring between the sheets of flame.  Dekar and Lexis both got singed by the flame attacks.  Tia hurriedly cast Champion.  Lexis recovered, but Dekar found it harder to regain his old power.  He sagged, clutching the wound in his side.  The Thunder Beasts, seeing that the torrent had ended, dived straight at Tia.  She threw herself to the ground.  The Thunder beasts passed so close that she could feel the electricity emitting from them.  "Be careful!" Tia yelled to Lexis and Dekar.  "It's a mage!  Don't get too close."  Dekar did not even raise his head.  Lexis began to cast a spell of his own.  Tia began to worry.  The party had always been within earshot of one another during battle.  This time, however, they were spread out so much that they might not be able to hear one another until it was too late.  However Lexis and Dekar seemed to be heeding her warning for the time being.  Tia decided to cast stronger and let Lexis handle the mage that had wandered to the one hundredth floor.  In truth, she was afraid to cast offensive spells, lest the other Tia materialize again.

            Lexis let fly a barrage of bombs – a buster attack, he had called it.  The mage swung his staff, allowing the enchanted wood to take the hit.  The staff flared with fire that did not consume it.  Lexis's attack had been useless.  Tia cast Stronger, noticing with concern the lackluster in Dekar's eyes.  The warrior who had once enjoyed battle so much did not move.  Tia wondered what options were left to the party.  They could not flee from this battle unless they wanted to face the dungeon master on their own.  That, Tia knew, was courting death.  Yet, everyone's strength was still low from fighting the dragons.  Tia took a deep breath.  She could feel the Iris jewel pulsing in her breast pocket, begging her to use it.  Tia shuddered.  She couldn't, she simply _couldn't _risk it!  

The mage swung his staff twice this time, and slammed it into the ground with a sound like "Hungah!"  Tia gaped in amazement as the mage rematerialized right beside Lexis.  His stick flashed, and yellow flames enveloped it.  The scientist gasped and barely managed to dodge the blow.  Annoyed, the mage pointed at Lexis and hissed.  The Thunder Beasts sped towards Lexis using the same cross formation they had used to attack Tia.  Lexis stumbled out of their way.  However, this time, the beasts doubled back and caught him between them.  Lexis screamed as blue and green electricity raced up and down his body.  Immobilized, he fell before the blue-robed sorcerer who laughed with mad glee.  Tia screamed and started to run towards him.  Dekar, too, went to help Lexis.  However, the Thunder Beasts threw back their heads.  Lightning burst from their maws, hitting the injured warrior head-on.  Tia skidded to a stop just out of range of the mage's wave of gray fire.  Lexis moaned in pain as the wave crashed over him.  Then he fell to the ground where he lay very still.

Tia's eyes widened.  _You didn't use the jewel to protect your friends. Stupid girl, _a cultured voice mocked her.  _Won't you use it now to save yourself?  Or are you too hard-headed to even do that?  _

With trembling fingers, Tia reached into her breast pocket and took out the jewel.  It glimmered in her hand so brilliantly that the wizard and his beasts stopped to stare.  A low howl ripped from Tia's throat.  Before she opened herself to the jewel's unbelievable power, white radiance filled the enormous chamber.  A circle formed beneath the sorcerer, freezing him where he stood.  Tia looked around her in disbelief at her fallen allies.

"Tia!" shouted a familiar voice.  "Cast Champion on Lexis!"

Tia followed the sound of the voice.  Upon the grand white stairs stood a blue-haired elf, a blonde warrior, and a wisp of a woman.  "Artea!" she whispered.  Her heart surged with hope.  _We have a chance! _she suddenly realized.

Lexis rose shakily as Tia cast the spell.  "A miracle," the scientist breathed raggedly.

Artea's spell flung the arch fiend backwards several feet.  The mage howled wildly and slammed its staff into the ground.

"How did that thing get ahead of us?" Guy wondered.

"Who cares?  We have a chance to kill it now," M'hana seethed.  

The three in the stair wings fanned out into the chamber.  The Thunder Beasts sounded their dismay to their master.  The arch fiend answered in a guttural hiss.  The Thunder Beasts looked at one another and began to circle the five standing party members.  The arch fiend prepared its spell with enraged fervor.

"Guy, get ready to attack the arch fiend like we did before!" Artea shouted.  Guy began to focus energy into his sword.  "M'hana, use Regain on Dekar!  He's the warrior who's down.  Tia, get Dekar back on his feet!"

"It's good to see you back," Lexis called to Guy.

"It looks like we got here just in time," Artea remarked.  "Lexis, cast stronger on Guy when he finishes with the arch fiend!"

"Okay!" Lexis agreed.

Dekar could not rise even after M'hana gave him the regain.  Even when Tia cast Champion on him, he only remained on his knees staring at the battle with glazed eyes.

Finally Guy shouted "What's wrong with you, Dekar?  Aren't you the strongest man in the world?  Lexis, how did you make it to this floor first if Dekar was just slacking off?"

When he heard this, Dekar managed to get to his feet.  "I was interrupted out of a sound sleep, mind you!"

"Get ready, Guy!" Artea yelled.

Guy charged the arch fiend with a fierce battle cry.  As he approached, Artea sent the Zap spell into the warrior's sword.  The spell made the sword gleam white.  The arch fiend managed to parry Guy's thrust, however.  The two remained locked in a fierce contest of strength.

"Hey Lexis!  Can we do that?  It appears that my friend Guy here needs some help!"

"We can try," Lexis said.  He began to chant the words to Fireball, a spell he was certain wouldn't break Dekar's axe.  Dekar began to focus his own energy for the blow.  When he sensed that the moment was right, the warrior charged at the arch fiend.  The fiend gurgled and hissed for his twin thunder beasts to protect him.  The beasts dived Dekar in their X-formation.  The warrior skillfully dodged them, rolling to the other side of the arch fiend.  When Lexis's spell reached him, his sword shone like the setting sun.  The warrior plunged the blade in between the arch fiend's shoulder blades.  The fiend screamed in agony and lost his grip on his staff.  Guy swung his blade with all of his strength, cleaving the arch fiend from head to waist.  The Thunder Beasts shrilled in dismay and vanished back into the realm from which they had been summoned.  The arch fiend, meanwhile, began to emit an aura the hue of a ruby.

"Get down!" Tia yelled, sensing perhaps through the other Tia's senses that the arch fiend had one final surprise in store for the warriors.  Guy and Dekar obeyed just in the instant that the arch fiend's robes exploded like a firecracker.  Red sparks sprinkled from the ceiling, glittering like fallen stars before dying upon the floor.

"Thank goodness," Guy said, rising and helping Dekar up.  "That was some killing stroke, huh?"

"Killing stroke," Dekar scoffed.  "Bah!  That killing stroke would have been a 'countered stroke' if I had not stepped in to help you!"

"Hah!  Such talk from the strongest man in the world!  I got the monster weakened many floors ago, you know.  It's been following us for some time now.  If I hadn't gotten it started, you wouldn't have been able to help finish it."  Guy crossed his arms in his typical know-it-all fashion, challenging Dekar to argue with him.

"If it had been me, Guy, I would have dispatched the monster on the floor I found it!" Dekar smirked.  "I am, after all, the strongest man in the world."

"You have no idea how glad we are to see you," Lexis said to Artea.  "We were getting worried."

Artea smiled grimly.  "_I _was worried.  I suppose it was all for nothing, though.  Lexis, did one of you fall in battle?"

Lexis gasped.  "Yes, actually.  Dekar perished when we were fighting a legion of dragons.  How did you know?"

"The Doom Island Four are very sensitive to ki patterns…one ki among you burned out," Artea said.  "I was worried that it was Tia."

"Tia?" Lexis smiled wryly.  "She has proven to be the strongest of all of us."

"It appears that we have some catching up to do," the elf said.

"And some planning to do," Lexis remarked.  "I suppose that beyond that dais lies the master of this dungeon.  I am certain that he will not hand over the cup of wishes without a fight."

"Quite right," the elf agreed.  "Come.  We have much to discuss."  He and Lexis moved off to Lexis's extensive collection of notes.

Tia sighed as the four men went off to talk.   She felt decidedly like a piece of forgotten luggage.  "I guess it's just you and me, huh Flash."  She sighed.  The little capsule monster chirped at her sympathetically.  Tia suddenly felt a strange urge to look at her jewel.  The urge was so powerful that she had reached into her pocket before she consciously registered the thought.  Its facets shimmered like fire in her hand, bringing tears to her eyes.

"So you are an Iris carrier."  The filthy woman who had been with Artea's party crossed her arms, a sneer on her face.  Though her face appeared as old as a hag's, her stance and voice were young, hot-blooded even.  

Tia hid the jewel and stared unabashedly at the woman.  Her pulse galloped as she remembered her encounter with the other Tia, who had also seemed interested in and integral to the jewel she carried.  "Who are you?" Tia asked with no trace of her usual manners.

As if they had sensed the encounter between the two women, Artea and Lexis looked up from their discussion.  Guy and Dekar, however, remained engaged in their latest argument about strength.

"I should ask you the same," M'hana said coldly, remembering all too well that the mocking woman in her dream had been clad in rose pink.

"I am Tia."  Her face burned as she sensed Lexis and Artea watching her.  They made no move toward them, which Tia supposed was just as well.

M'hana seemed to sense their gaze as well.  Keeping half an eye on the thief and the elf, she bowed low.  "M'hana."  Chill radiated through her voice, so much so that Tia backed away.  Flash even dispensed of his customary gentle demeanor and hissed at the thief.  Laughing in contempt at the capsule monster's attempt at ferocity, M'hana slunk into the shadows.  Tia sighed.  The party's reunion with Artea and Guy was already less cheerful than she had envisioned.  Before she could ponder the matter for long, Artea and Lexis were at her side.

"Did she say anything to you?" Lexis asked.

Tia shook her head.  "Only her name…  And she wanted to know mine.  Also she said something about an Iris treasure."

"An Iris treasure?" Artea sounded incredulous.  "Did you find one?"

"I have it right here," Tia said.  She opened her palm slowly.  

Artea's eyes widened.  "I found a ring of similar make," he said.  He held out his hand so that Tia could see the ring.  "And our sulking thief over there has seven treasures herself.  Be on your guard, Tia.  She has tried to steal my ring on numerous occasions."

Tia's eyes narrowed, and her lips curled in disgust.  "Let her try that with me," she hissed.  "We'll see how she fares."

"Tia?" Artea said in disbelief.  He could scarcely believe that the gentle girl he had spoken to outside of the cave had such a harsh core inside of her.

"That jewel might have the spirit of a mage inside of it," Lexis said, offering his explanation.  "Occasionally that personality emerges in Tia.  She can cast stronger spells, but she also…changes."  The scientist winced.  He felt bad talking about Tia while she was right there.

Tia, however, met his gaze steadily.  "Most of what the scientist says is true," Tia claimed.  "But how do you know what is in this girl's heart?  She is excellent at deception.  She can even convince herself."  Tia blinked as if started.  Then she glared at the jewel and hid it back in her pocket.  "I'm sorry, Artea.  Did you say something?"

Lexis shook his head in pity.  Artea, however, maintained his elven nonchalance.  "Did you have a strange dream recently, Tia?" he asked.

Tia thought immediately of the fire and the shattering mirror from which her other self had emerged.  "Why yes," she said.

Artea's hand strayed immediately to the cut on his cheek.  It was difficult for him to tell in the dim light of the bottom floor's torches.  However, it appeared that Tia had several cuts on her face and a most peculiar burn.  "I had an especially unsettling dream a few nights ago," the elf confided to Tia and Lexis.  He did not have to look up to know that M'hana was listening in as was her fashion.  "In it, I went to Eserikto.  It was deserted.  I went into one of the houses…it was as if I was drawn there.  In the bedroom there was a mirror.  I could not make out my reflection in it, but…I did see you in it, Tia.  You had your hands against the glass as if you were trying to pass through it, and there was fire surrounding you."

Tia gasped, her hand going to the cuts on her face.  Color drained beneath her fingers.  "Yes," she remembered.  "I was in a room filled with flame…the other me stepped out of the mirror and spoke to me, though I cannot remember what she said now.  Somehow I ended up inside of the mirror and she on the outside of it.  Then…the mirror shattered… _ I_ shattered!  When I awoke, my face was burned and scratched."  

Artea's eyes were fierce.  "In my dream, the mirror shattered with you in it.  One of the shards cut me."  He traced the cut on his cheek.  "I think it has to do with the Iris treasures," the elf concluded.

Tia closed her eyes.  "It is a possibility," she admitted.  "But how do we know for sure?"

"M'hana carries seven Iris treasures with her," Artea said.  "The ill effects from her dream were the strongest.  Look at her withered face.  She appeared just your age when Guy and I encountered her.  The transformation did not take place until she had the dream."

Tia stole a look at M'hana, who was staring into space.  

"It appears to me that the treasures are cursed," Lexis hypothesized.  "Maybe you two would be better off without them."

Neither Artea nor Tia said a word.  Nevertheless, their silence spoke volumes.  The scientist threw up his hands.  "It was just a suggestion!"

{****}

            The party spent the entire morning resting from the fight.  Later that afternoon, Artea and Lexis got together and discussed various strategies they could use against the enigmatic dungeon master.  By evening, the party was refreshed enough to stomach their waning rations.  In the dim torchlight, Artea disclosed the strategies he and Lexis had decided on.

            "We are six," the elf began.  "Four are a formidable match for a Sinistral," he added.  "Lexis and I have decided, therefore, that M'hana and Tia should remain at the bottom of the dais in the event that something goes wrong."

            _Translates to, 'M'hana can't be trusted, and Tia's too unpredictable, what with her stupid jewel.__  Besides, they're women.  Why not__ leave them behind?' Tia thought._

            A grave mood overcame the six as Artea spoke of spells, weapons, techniques, and their limited supply of regain and miracles.  "Neither party was fortunate enough to find Valor or Rally, so we must be cautious above all," Artea said, looking pointedly at Dekar and Guy, the two most likely to show off recklessly.  "But, with that said, this is a momentous occasion."  Artea smiled, and suddenly Tia felt that everything would be alright.  "The end that we came here to achieve is almost accomplished.  Very soon we will have restored Maxim and Selan to rightfully deserved life."  The elf, having finished what he wanted to say, returned to the shadows to talk to Lexis.

            "Think of it," Guy was telling Dekar.  "You'll get to have that fight with Maxim, just like you wanted!"

            Dekar smiled broadly.  "That's right!  Maybe you should come fight too…  Then again…you might get hurt."

            "Who are you kidding?  You're the one who's going to get beaten!"  Guy and Dekar laughed long and loud.  Tia sat near them with Flash in her arms, wishing she could be as carefree as they were, yet knowing that it could not be.  She took small comfort in noticing that Dekar had a more serious, deliberate air about him, even engaged in his favorite pastime of tormenting Guy.  She looked about the vast chamber.  It was not so tremendous, nor so ancient as the room where she, Lexis, and Dekar had fought the dragons.  Nonetheless, it was a grand room with walls of icy marble and spotless white columns.  The dais seemed to rise into infinity.

            _It's been a long journey, Tia thought to herself.  __And now it's almost at an end.  She looked again at the dais.  Now she could see that M'hana was leaning against it.  There was a definite sulk in her slump.  Tia thought she knew what the woman was feeling so sour about.  It was the end of their journey, and they would not even get the fight the final battle.  Tia realized that she and M'hana now had some common ground.  She left Dekar and Guy to their debate and walked to the thief's side._

            "Are you going to do it?  You might get in their way, you know," the thief said.  

            Tia started.  "Am I going to do-"  She broke off, suddenly understanding intuitively what the thief had said and why she had said it.  Tia touched her Iris jewel.  She could sense it from M'hana too, indignation at being excluded from the deciding battle and her full intention to follow the men, whatever the danger.  Tia nodded, meeting the thief's eyes.  "I will.  And you are too, I take it."

            "The elf won't like it," M'hana commented.  "But that won't be anything new for me."

            Tia marveled at the awesome powers of the Iris treasures, which allowed their holders to read minds.  She was not certain if it was because the treasures were all gathered in one place, or simply because they stood in the heart of the dungeon.  However she fully expected M'hana's warning.  "Be careful what you think.  You don't want the elf to know what we have planned."

            Tia nodded and moved off into the darkness.  How she was expected to sleep to sleep through her anticipation of the coming morning, the fight with the dungeon master and the revival of Maxim and Selan, she could not begin to fathom.  Nonetheless, she carefully masked her excitement and waited for the morning to come.


	14. The Dungeon Master

Chapter Fourteen: The Dungeon Master

            That morning, Guy and Dekar woke early to help themselves to the last of the rations and to put on their complicated armor.  Artea and Lexis, who found that plate armor slowed them down, glanced over their spells for the last time.  Tia and M'hana did their best to remain inconspicuous.  Their unspoken agreement to sneak after the party added to the tension which filled the air.  Finally the warriors finish attaching the last of their cumbersome little buckles.  Artea and Lexis shut their spell books and proceeded toward the dais.

            "There is a chance that we might not come back," Artea warned Tia as they approached the formidable marble staircase.  

"It is a small one, however, seeing as we have two people on par with Sinistrals!" Guy interjected.

"Actually three," Dekar corrected him.  "I'm the man of enormous hidden power!"

Artea rolled his eyes.  "In the event that the Dungeon Master poses a problem, we will shoot off red fireworks.  Even Guy and Dekar can do this, since Lexis has enough flash powder for everyone."

Tia nodded seriously, trying to squelch her emotions, yet look suitably worried so she wouldn't rouse suspicion.  "Be careful, Artea," she said at last.  "All of you…please.  After you revive Maxim and Selan, there will only be one wish left!"

"Cheer up, Tia," Guy said.  "With me in the party, how could we go wrong?"

Tia ignored him, meeting Dekar's earnest eyes.  "I wish you luck," the blue haired woman said.  

"Feh," M'hana snorted.  "They're going to need it."

"Remember," Lexis said as Artea, Dekar, and Guy mounted the stairs.  "Watch for the red fireworks!"

"Will do," Tia said, trying to smile reassuringly.  Lexis grinned uncertainly and ran after the elf and the warriors.  

Alone with M'hana, Tia could feel the connection of the Iris treasures surging through her.  "When do you want to start after them?" she asked.  "Since you're the one with all the experience in stealth?"

"Wait 'til they're out of sight," M'hana suggested.

_More waiting, _Tia thought with a pang.  She watched the four men shrink as they climbed higher and higher, back to the top of the cave it seemed.  

Finally M'hana started for the steps.  "Let's go," she said.

Tia tightened her grip on her staff.  She could hardly believe she was doing this as she ran after the swift thief.  As the ground fell away, the torches, once roaring bowls of fire became as small as her hand.  _Do these stairs ever end? Tia wondered as sprinted.  Sweat matted her hair to her forehead.  M'hana never slowed.  After a while, Tia's side began to ache.  She stopped, panting, and looked back.  The stairs were endless.  She could no longer see the bottom.  And still the top was a considerable distance away.  M'hana was already a speck against the upper shadowy reaches.  Tia sighed and started after the thief, this time taking the stairs two at a time.  It had not bothered her earlier, but now she was really starting to notice that the stairs had no rail.  Still she pressed onward, occasionally looking out of the corner of her eye.  Before long, she could no longer make out the ground, save for the winking torches, now as small as the Iris jewel.  Everything was a tapestry of dim threads upon darkness.  Just as Tia was beginning to falter, she came upon the lean thief.  M'hana was standing with her arms crossed.  _

"Feh," the thief greeted her sourly.  "I was hoping that you hadn't fallen off."

"How much farther is it?" Tia asked.

M'hana shrugged.  "Who knows?  These stairs could lead all the way to the ground floor for all I know."

Tia swayed a little bit.  "Oh great."

"Come on," M'hana urged.  "Or they'll be done with the fight before we get there!"  The two women hurried onward.

{****}

            "How much farther?" Guy whined.  "If I had known how high these stairs are, I wouldn't have bothered with this armor!"  Rivers of sweat poured from the warrior's forehead alone, stinging his eyes.  "We should have climbed some of this yesterday and camped on the stairs."

            "You wouldn't have liked that if you rolled around in the night and fallen," Dekar pointed out.

            "It can't be too much farther," Lexis huffed.  "The structural integrity wouldn't stand for it, surely!"

            "What do you mean?" Guy wheezed.

            "If it gets too much taller, it's going to be really rickety at the top," Lexis explained.

            Guy winced.  "I think that we're going to have a really unstable perch then.  Look at how far ahead Artea is!"

            Suddenly the staircase bucked, throwing Guy, Dekar, and Lexis to their knees.

            "What in the hell is going on up there?" Guy shouted.  Rubble began to rain from the ceiling.  Without warning, the chimes of a warp spell sounded.  Artea materialized beside the scientist and the two warriors.  

            "I need some help up there," Artea said.

            "Have you seen the dungeon master already?" Dekar asked.

            "How much farther is it?" Guy queried.

            "So much for structural integrity," Lexis muttered, his face paling.

            "Warp!" Artea said.  The four materialized on a narrow outcropping composed of transparent crystal blue tiles.  "The Cup of Wishes is in the chamber beyond this platform.  I just saw it!"

            Just as the elf mentioned the cup, an explosion rocked the platform.  

"Such power!" breathed Guy.  

Whirling flames appeared in the center of the platform, forcing the party backwards.  The four men reached for their weapons.  Out of the flames oozed what was easily the largest jelly in the world.  The dungeon master was the hue of a ruby and easily filled two thirds of the platform.  Lexis and Artea immediately moved back toward the stairs.  

"Is _this the dungeon master?" Guy made the mistake of saying.  "He's a jelly!"_

Insulted, the jelly quavered a bit, causing the party members to scramble to regain their footing.

"Are you here for the tenth cursed treasure?" the jelly asked.  It's deep, booming voice made its body and the blue tiles shiver a little more.

"No," Artea said, bracing himself with his staff.  "We are here for the Cup of Wishes!"

"How peculiar," the jelly remarked.  "I did not believe that an elf would travel the dark paths within the earth."  Then the impact of what Artea had said registered with him.  "The Cup?  You filthy, puny beings seek _my_ precious cup?"  The jelly sounded astounded.  "I shall see if you are worthy of holding my cup in your hands!  En guarde!"

{****}

            M'hana and Tia shrieked as the stairs quavered.  "What is going on up there?" Tia managed to yell as bits of the ceiling came loose.

            M'hana, after nearly being pitched over the side of the stairs, cursed vehemently.  "This must be the dungeon master," she said.  She did not mention that she could sometimes feel the final Iris treasure resonating with his power as she touched those she had gathered.  "Hurry!  We must get to the top!  There's gotta be a platform or something up there."

            The two women, spurred on by the occasional rumbling of the stairs, hurried on, faster, faster, even recklessly.  At last Tia could hear the familiar chanting of Zap and Thunder.

            "We're close!" she said.

            "Let's go slower now," M'hana said.  "We want to get a feel for the situation."  

Tia agreed.  They approached the battle slowly, noting at once that Lexis and Artea were forced to fight on the stairs because of the dungeon master's tremendous bulk.  When Tia first glimpsed the creature, she thought at once of what Dekar had said about the first jelly they had encountered in the cave.  "I wonder if that's what happens when they grow big and strong," she muttered.

"There's not much room up there, is there?" M'hana remarked.  

Tia's stomach clenched with worry for the party.  All too easily, any one of them could fall right to their death!  

The jelly seemed to sense the difficulty that the four men had fighting on the platform.  Waves rippled gently across his ruby-colored bulk as he began to expand, forcing Guy and Dekar backwards.  

Tia gritted her teeth.  "At this rate, we'll be discovered," she muttered.

"It was going to happen sooner or later," M'hana reminded her.  "By the way…I have a plan that will get the five of you the cup.  I can see it in that room beyond the jelly.  Then they won't have to fight the dungeon master."

"What's the plan?" Tia demanded.  Her pulse quickened.  

"This," M'hana said.  "I'll distract the jelly, and you can sneak past it and get in there."

"But…"  Tia thought of the long drop to the ground floor.  Then she remembered that the very same peril was facing Lexis, Dekar, Guy, and Artea.  At last Tia said, "Alright.  I'll do it."

{****}

            "Watch out, Dekar!" Artea shouted.  The dungeon master slung a missile that glinted like red flame.  Dekar barely dodged the slime projectile, veering dangerously close to the edge of the platform.  He teetered on the brink for a minute before gathering his weight into his sword thrust.  With a deafening scream, the warrior buried his sword up to the hilt in the dungeon master.  He jumped back from the embedded blade just as Lexis summoned the Thunder Beast.  From the beast's maw sped a ball of white lightning that split in the air, becoming many smaller strands.  These jagged bolts sought Dekar's sword, glimmering deep within the metal.  The resulting explosion rocked the platform.  The dungeon master quavered from the impact.  The waves that formed on his body sped to the speed of white caps.  Dekar abandoned his sword and darted back to the relative safety of the party.  Lexis and Artea struggled to their feet.  Guy, meanwhile, recklessly braved the trembling platform to charge at the jelly.  His sword flashed in the inconsistent light of the Thunder Beast.  The jelly shone like blood in the flickering illumination.  Guy drove his sword in with all his might.  The jelly reeled in pain, but Guy clung tight to his sword.  Slowly, ever so slowly, the blonde warrior closed his free hand around Dekar's sword.  His muscles burned with the effort of pulling it loose.  Guy was so intent on his task that he did not realize that the jelly was gathering itself to attack.  

"Guy!" Artea yelled as the jelly bucked.  The elf's face went pale as the jelly smashed down on top of Guy.  The warrior's face turned a ghastly blue in seconds, for the dungeon master was crushing the life out of him.  Fury flared in Artea.  _I did not gather Maxim's companions so they could die!  His ring flashed white.  With more audacity than he knew he possessed, Artea crossed the distance between the stairs and the jelly's platform.  He could dimly make out Guy's outline beneath the jelly's considerable bulk.  The light from Artea's ring had spread to his staff.  It shone with starfire.  With a scream, the elf brought the staff crashing down.  On his tongue he tasted strange arcane words.  A great wind whirled about the platform, making the elf's hair billow like a flag.  The staff began to pulsate as if life moved through it.  A white dome formed around Guy, and he vanished.  Artea looked back to see that the warrior had materialized by Dekar's side.  Ashen-faced, Guy returned Dekar's sword to him.  A five-pointed star rose from above Artea's staff, lighting the entire ceiling.  It shone brighter and brighter still until Artea's eyes teared to see it.  Then it sped towards the jelly and smashed into its side, displacing a smoldering chunk of slime.  Then the light from Artea's staff died.  The elf stared at his ring in amazement.  Dazed, he was about to return to the party when thick, choking yellow smoke filled the air.  He remembered the sulpherous reek well.  __Smoke bombs.  M'hana!  The elf's skin crawled as he stared at the solid wall of sickly yellow.  He had no illusions of what would happen if the dungeon master regained visibility before he did.  __Damn the thief! Artea thought vehemently, watching for even the slightest break in the smoke._

{****}

            Once Tia had agreed to follow M'hana's plan, the thief had taken out several lopsided packages.  She had thrown them onto the platform where the dungeon master stood and cast the spark spell before waving Tia ahead.  "Don't worry," M'hana said as Tia looked at her in disbelief.  "I'll make sure that the smoke doesn't blow away before you're done."

_That, _Tia thought, _is the least of my worries.  How am _I_ supposed to see through this?  She had steeled herself to brave the smoke, which not only made her eyes water, but smelled like a barrel of rotten fruit baking in the sun.  Tia crept forward, feeling for the edge of the platform with her foot.  The breathing of the jelly beside her was like a giant bellows.  _

Suddenly it occurred to her to wonder how M'hana would know if she had reached the cup.  Her heart beat a little faster.  _I'm pretty certain that the platform was shaped this way, _she thought, carefully inching forward.  Without warning, her foot pitched into nothingness.  Biting down a scream, Tia jerked backwards.  She scrunched her eyes shut, willing her pulse to slow down just a little before she panicked completely.  Smoke waved before her, a billowing banner, thick as cloth.  Then Tia glimpsed a break in the smoke, where it became thinner and she could begin to make out the doorway of another chamber.  She realized that the smoke must have flitted into the room that the cup occupied.  She made for the room, hope brimming in her heart.  Sure enough, the closer she came, the paler the smoke became.  Tia slid past the enormous mound of jelly and into the room.  

There she sighed with relief to have solid ground beneath her feet.  The room she had entered reminded her of the various shrines she had encountered in her travels with Maxim, festooned with marble, columns, and even a small fountain.  In the center of the small chamber rose an unfinished column flanked on either side by rich drapes of red velvet.  The cup stood atop it.  

At first Tia wondered if it was an illusion, so inconstant was its form.  When she first glimpsed it, it was a grand chalice formed of glittering gold, inlaid with pearls and precious gems.  After a second look, however, the cup had become a smooth silver goblet that bore no other ornament.  By the time she had taken it in her trembling hand, the cup had changed again to crystal so delicate that Tia might have smashed it in her hand if she clutched it tightly enough.  Perplexed, she stared at the cup of wishes, daring it to melt in her hands or to undergo yet another metamorphosis.  The cup obliged her with another transformation, this time becoming a simple copper bowl in which one might serve tea.  Tia returned to the opening of the chamber.  The smoke was fading even from the platform where M'hana had concentrated the smoke bombs.  However, the offensive smell lingered.  

Tia hardly noticed when the copper tea bowl became a warm, rich honey-colored wood that gleamed like bronze, as the fight against the jelly had begun again.  Despite the disadvantage the party had at having to fight at such a horrific height, it was obvious that they were somehow overpowering the dungeon master.  Tia watched, spellbound, as the final round of the battle unfolded.

{****}

"I think that this time you can finish the dungeon master!" Lexis shouted, his eyes steaming from the smoke bombs.

Artea materialized, ghostlike, at the scientist's side.  "He is weakened sufficiently.  It is as you say," the elf said.  "Guy, Dekar, prepare yourselves.  This round we are going to administer the killing blow."

Guy and Dekar nodded in agreement.

Lexis directed the Thunder Beast to attack the jelly.  The dungeon master rose like a red tide and engulfed the beast.  Lexis shuddered as the beast flailed and thrashed while the jelly suffocated it.

Dekar and Guy charged at the Jelly Master, their swords held before them.  

"Firebird!" Artea shouted.  A scream sounded above him as the phoenix materialized.  Flames roared in the elf's ears, drowning out all other sound.  The bird split into countless particles and entered Guy and Dekar's swords.  The warriors had gone to opposite sides of the platform from one another.  Now they charged straight towards one another, their swords blazing orange and yellow.  They cut through the weakened dungeon master as easily as if he had been made of butter.  His flesh parted for their swords, melting away with a fierce hiss.  When Dekar and Guy met in the center of the jelly where Lexis's thunder beast was imprisoned, the firebird broke free of their swords, beating his wings and shrilling in triumph.  The blistering heat from its wings seared away the last of the jelly that remained, and the thunder beast broke free.  Thunder and flame circled one another, trailing glistening embers and electricity, crimson and gold.  The dungeon master was defeated.  Before the party could rejoice at their victory, the platform, strained to the breaking point, gave way.  With piteous groans, the stairs nearest to the blue crystal platform broke off, launching the party into the endless darkness and the arms of doom.  


	15. Ten Iris Treasures

Chapter Fifteen: Ten Iris Treasures

            Tia gasped as the platform shattered like a fine crystal vase.  Her hand automatically sought the jewel, but brushed against empty space.  Momentary panic overtook her.  To her knowledge, only the other Tia possessed the guile to save the party in situations like these.  How could she have been so careless?  All the rest of her time in this damp dungeon, she had been protective of the Iris jewel to say the very least. With a jolt she remembered M'hana's strange kindness, recalled Artea's mentioning the thief's strange obsession with the "cursed" treasures of the cave.  

Then she felt the cup of wishes, warm against her hand.  Three wishes, Artea had said.  One could be spared to save them all.  Suddenly Tia's blood ran cold.  The cup was in her hands, that was true, and the three wishes with it, just as her other self had predicted.  Yet she had not the slightest idea how to summon its power, any more than she knew how to control that which came through the Iris Jewel.  Tears of despair and frustration stung Tia's eyes.  It did not seem right that she should be the one to gain the cup of wishes while everyone else perished.  "I wish…" she whispered.  Memories inundated her, the pieces of a time when she was always crying, always wishing for something integral to change so that she could laugh instead of weep.  The very words she had spoken so freely as a child filled her body with a strange power as inexplicable as that of the jewel.  Tia took a deep shuddering breath, daring to hope.  "I wish for everyone to make it to the bottom safely with me."  

For several paralyzing seconds, nothing happened.  Then the inside of the cup shimmered with golden radiance.  Tia shut her eyes to the light.  The ground swirled around her, making her long hair and tattered skirts billow.  When she dared to open her eyes, she was drifting as gently as a feather in a breeze to the distant floor.  _The cup's power!  _Her heart surged with the realization that she could command the power.  It seemed that the fall took a long time.  Tia wondered how the others had fared.  Had she made the wish in time?  A thick blanket of darkness concealed the bottom of the cave from her view as she fell through the vast vault through which the ruined stairwell wound.   

At last Tia reached the ground.  The purple torches at the far end of the chamber provided her with barely enough light to make out the astonished party members.  She longed to count them or even run towards them laughing like a fool at the incredible proof of the cup's magic, the torches went out.  Tia cried out in dismay.  Before she could call their names, a familiar glow winked at her from the floor.  _My jewel!  _As she bent to retrieve it, Tia wondered what evil fate the thief had met.  Her fingers had nearly closed about the gem's vibrant, living beauty when ten pillars of light erupted from the Iris treasures, illumining the entire chamber right up to its distant ceiling.  Tia gasped.  Every feature of the party members – all returned to the ground safely, even M'hana – stood out in sharp relief.  The light pillars began as rainbow fire and then darkened to rich grays and purples, before finally fading to ghostly silver white.  Tia's head pounded and spun; she clutched the Cup of Wishes tightly.  It seemed to be the only real thing in this surreal display.  

Finally the torches sputtered back to life.  This time, however, their fire matched exactly in hue and brightness the mysterious Iris treasures.  In the new light, Tia could make out – squinting – the ten Iris treasures scattered on the floor, Artea's ring, her own stolen jewel, M'hana's seven treasures, and the final one that had materialized with the destruction of the dungeon master.  All ten were still afire with mysterious illumination that echoed on the eyelids with but a glance.  The other party members shielded their eyes.  Only Tia and M'hana looked upon the maddened treasures, Tia with awe and fear, M'hana with lust and greed.  Out of the ghostly brightness stepped an apparition, a lovely woman dressed in red.  She wore her hair much as Tia wore hers, long down her back.  Her astonished eyes mimicked the shine of the Iris jewel.  In that instant, Tia knew that she was looking upon her other self, the mage who had sealed herself into the Iris jewel.  There was one thing, nonetheless, that Tia did not understand.  In her dream, her other self had been cruel and cunning.  In the waking world, however, the other Tia only appeared baffled, much like one suddenly awoken and pestered with detailed questions.  The Iris Treasures flashed one final time in blinding white.  When the light faded, the treasures were gone from the cave floor, and the other Tia was no longer an apparition, but a solid woman.  Tia felt a queasy feeling in her stomach for the loss of her jewel.  In addition, she could not shake the sensation that she knew the woman from somewhere.  

M'hana's countenance bore a similar expression of loss.  The thief's eyes, however, smoldered with rage.  By this time, the other party members were able to look once more about themselves in shock.  M'hana flung herself at the red-clad woman with a furious snarl.  A dirk glinted in her hands as she lunged towards the woman's throat.  The other Tia, however, proved to be as Lexis had predicted– a formidable mage.  She held up one hand.  A barrier formed around her, a wall into which M'hana slammed.  The dirk flew out of her hands.  The thief reeled from the impact.  The other Tia now bore the countenance which haunted Tia's mind – the one of absent of any kindness, the one that enjoyed inflicting pain.  With a smirk, the other Tia sent a surge of power at the thief.  M'hana soared straight across the room, cracking her head against the wall.  She collapsed and lay very still.

"I recognize that ki!" Guy shouted.  "You're-"  

"Erim!" he and Artea yelled simultaneously.

 "None other!"  Erim, the other Tia, faded from view for a moment.  In that instant, Tia recognized the Sinistral's original guise as that of Iris, who had convinced Maxim to begin the journey that had ended in his fight with the Sinistrals on Doom Island.  When the party could see Erim again, she wore her traditional death armor.  Her ki was unmistakable, so powerful that it chilled Tia's limbs.

"This is impossible!" Guy said in disbelief.  "We defeated you at Doom Island!"

Erim chuckled, low and menacing.  "You did indeed smite me in the heavens.  What an exquisite irony that you two, members of the Doom Island Four, have now resurrected me in the bowels of hell."

"But…how?"  Shaking with fury and astonishment, Guy was at a loss.

Erim crossed her bare arms.  "Pure luck, actually.  The vessel that contains my spirit-"

"You mean…Iris?" Artea interrupted.

Erim nodded curtly.  "Yes.  She is a clever little witch.  Thinking to cheat me, she split her soul into ten pieces and sealed each piece within a treasure already infused with great power – that of restoring the flesh!"

"The Iris treasures?"  Lexis gasped.

"Yes!"  Erim laughed.  "The cursed treasures of this cave!  When brought together, the body and soul are restored, which, as you can see, restored me!"  She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper.  "And, as you know, so long as I live, the Sinistrals can be revived!"

"We won't let that happen!" Artea declared.  He raised his staff in a challenge to Erim.  Guy likewise drew his sword.

"You have little choice in the matter."  Erim sneered.  "I have better things to do than fight the two of you…how regrettable that there are only two of the Doom Island Four remaining."  Her roving eye caught hold of Tia, freezing the young woman in place.  "I hope you enjoy fighting in hell," the Sinistral said.  "Now, en guarde!"  A wave of power crashed from her, knocking Lexis and Dekar flat.  Artea and Guy withstood the blast and rushed to their companions.  

"This is going to be difficult," Guy said, helping Dekar to his feet.  "We don't even have the Divine Armor or the Dual Blade.  How are we supposed to fight her?"

"I don't want to get in your way, Artea," Lexis said.  "But let Dekar and me help you and Guy!  Perhaps we can make a difference somehow."

"It'll be risky," Artea said.  "But I don't think we have a choice.  We can fight…or we can perish."  He looked with regret at M'hana's fallen form.  "There is no place to run here."  The elf switched his staff for his spear.  He and Guy shared a brief mental exchange.  Erim was still weak from having just revived.  If they could charge her in time, they could do massive damage to her and perhaps save some of the party members in the process.  Their rush was swift and their battle cries loud and strong. Erim, however, was a deceptive enemy.  Just as Guy and Artea got close to her, she raised her hand just as she had when M'hana had rushed her.  A transparent barrier flickered around her.  Artea caught sight of the edges too late and turned to the side, grazing his shoulder on it.  Guy veered off course, ending up behind the Mistress of Death.  Erim laughed.  "Well," she remarked in a knowing tone.  "I see that you still have some fire in you, even after your scuffle with the dungeon master!"  She knelt and began to pray.  Only Artea could make out the ancient language she used.

"No!" the elf gasped.  "We have to stop her!"

"What's she doing?" Guy asked.  He tightened his grip on his sword.  It was tempting to attempt to smite the sorceress while she was praying.  However, her dangerous barrier was flickering, very much in tact.

"She's praying…" the elf choked "for the resurrection of the Sinistrals!"

"_What?!?" Guy gasped, his eyes wide._

The other party members, instinctively wary of Erim's enormous ki, cried out in dismay.  

Twin portals opened on Erim's right and left.  Within, they gleamed with streamers of darkness.  The foul stench of decay wafted out of them.  From each of these portals stepped a giant.  The two of them blinked, bewildered in the rainbow-lit chambers.  

"Amon!" Artea whispered, taking a step back.

"Gades!"  Guy's face turned white.

Erim opened her eyes, which shone with gleeful malice.  "We'll see how you fare as half of a team!"

The reborn Sinistrals looked around, not realizing even that they had been restored to life, so deep had been their long sleep.  Then their eyes locked with those of Artea and Guy.  Battle lust filled the Sinistrals' empty veins, and their ki flared to life, materializing around their bodies in varying hues of nonlight.  The ki was so powerful that the walls of the chamber began to tremble.  Guy and Artea unleashed their long-suppressed powers and raised their weapons to begin the fight.  The Sinistrals said nothing, needing no persuasion to seek blood and rain terror.  Before the battle began, however, Dekar and Lexis rushed into the fray.  Lexis went to fight Amon with Artea, and Dekar took his stand with Guy.

Meanwhile, Erim turned from the battle.  She could feel the presence of the Cup of Wishes.  She lusted for what those wishes could bring about…she longed for Maxim, the greatest of all the Doom Island Four.  She knew that the cup would not respond to her wishes.  Indeed, if she were to hold it in her hand, it would likely shatter.  However, the one who held the cup, Tia, was capable of making wishes…and of being swayed to make them in accordance with Erim's will. 

When she saw Erim, a scream ripped from Tia's throat.  She recognized the eyes from her dream, those horrible searing eyes that pierced through flesh, bone, and blood to look upon the very soul.  Tia perceived the Sinistral's intention and clutched the cup closer to her.  Erim smirked at Tia's futile act.  The girl's frailty was laughable.  Why, she did not even have sufficient courage to raise a staff to her.  Erim smiled.  This would be easier than she had thought.

{****}

            As the Mistress of Death advanced on her, Tia cowered and cringed away.  She felt no shame in doing so, for the ki emanating from Erim was so powerful that it sang in Tia's blood like endless ringing thunderclaps.  The Mistress of Death closed the distance between her, her hand outstretched.  She spoke words that Tia seemed to remember.  _I could remember…if I only had my jewel, _Tia thought groggily. Her eyes lidded halfway.  Then a voice spoke to her, but it was not a voice that she could hear.  Rather it was one that spoke from within her mind.  At first Tia thought that the Sinistral was speaking to her through telepathy, but then uncertainty overcame her.  Perhaps the voice was really speaking in her own mind.  Yet why was the Sinistral staring at her as if she knew and relished every thought in Tia's mind?

            _It was so brave of you to come so far…  Yet why are you here, Tia?  You still don't know the answer to Dekar's question, do you?  Could it be that you really don't want to know the answer – that you came on this journey because it would mean a chance to see Maxim again?_

Tia shook her head furiously.  _That isn't why I am here!  It felt decidedly odd to argue with herself.  Nevertheless, she knew the debate well; she had fought it in her dreams and sometimes while awake.  More often awake lately._

            _You know it is the truth.  Why deny what is?  Is love such a terrible thing?_

_            Well…no, but…  _There was something wrong with this reasoning, surely.  Tia was reluctant to give ground to the voice that had lately dominated her thoughts.  _You're the other me!  I thought you were Iris at first, but she was not cruel like you…  Her eyes weren't coldly beautiful like that jewel…_     

            Tia's thoughts were so hazy that she did not realize that the Sinistral was so near.  She did not feel Erim's strong hands close about her throat and lift her from the ground.  All the proof that she had of Erim's presence was a throbbing sensation in her temples and a dull roar in her ears like the buzzing of clouds of bees.

            _Love is a wonderful, beautiful thing, the voice proclaimed boldly in Tia's head.  __Look at how powerful it has made you!  Even Dekar, the strongest man in the world noticed!_

The cup dropped from Tia's fingers as consciousness began to slip through her grasp.

            _If you revive Selan again, Maxim will love her and not you!  Is that what you want?_

Tia went limp in Erim's grasp.  The Sinistral lowered her to the ground while continuing to fill Tia's mind with her telepathic poison, bending the woman gently yet steadily to her will.

            _No! Tia replied.  Once again she felt that this was the wrong answer, yet she couldn't figure out why that was the case.  All around her it was black.  _

            _Selan stole your love from you!  You should subject her to blackness like this for all eternity!  The voice in her head was getting more insistent.  Tia remained apathetic.  Erim sent the same message, this time treating Tia to an illusion of Maxim and Selan's last embrace._

            _No! Tia struggled against the persuasive anger that was starting to sing in her blood.  ___

_{****} _

The Mistress of Death pursed her lips in frustration.  Tia was proving to be surprisingly stubborn.  She could not apply her stronger methods of mind control without blowing the woman's head off, however.  She growled under her breath and continued her spell, slowing wearing away at Tia's defenses, magnifying the unrealized wish and the hurt of unrequited love in Tia's heart.

{****}

            Tia swam through darkness, searching for anything to guide her.  Then she heard the harsh voice that she had entered the darkness to retreat from.  However, she could hear another voice, quieter, speaking from within the crueler one.  Tia wasn't certain if she was imagining it.  Yet she strained to listen to it, for it had a ring of kindness to it.  Her memory, with nothing to distract it, immediately pinned a name to the gently persuasive voice.  Iris.  

            But as Tia listened more, she thought she heard a masculine ring to it.  A simple warrior's uncultured tones.  _When you find that thing, whatever it is, you should use your life to pursue it.  Once you catch it, you will find contentment that will endure to the end of your days.  _

            _Dekar! Tia thought with a measure of regret.  __I still don't know what that thing is…  She felt dampness on her cheeks, and suddenly she was conscious of her body again.  __But…  She thought of Maxim and the happiness he had brought her.  Then she thought again on Dekar's words.  Hadn't Maxim found his ultimate happiness with Selan?  Looking deep within herself, Tia knew that no matter how much she hurt inside, no matter what Maxim knew or did not know, she could never rob him of that happiness, no matter what the method.  _

            _What is the matter with you?  It was Erim's voice again, impatient and pitiless.  __Even I can see what you want!  You want Maxim, right?  Well it is a simple matter then!  Restore his life and wish Selan banished to eternal darkness!         _

Clarity flared in Tia, running cold through her veins.  Suddenly she had the courage to stand and face the Mistress of Death.  _That _isn't_ how I want it!  With that shout, Tia broke free of Erim's hypnosis.  _

The Mistress of Death gasped.  She had not expected Tia to be so resilient.  "Damn you!" she shouted to the air, to Iris, Tia supposed.  How Iris had gotten inside of Erim was still unknown to her.  Nonetheless, Tia knew it was true, as surely as she had known her own love for Maxim.  She threw herself at the cup, which was glinting like a diamond amongst the coal.  Her fingers closed around its cold base.  No longer was it a simple wooden bowl.  It had become the richly bejeweled chalice she had glimpsed before.  The light of hundreds of stars glittered from inside of it.  Tia glanced at Erim.  However, the Sinistral was slumped over, her hands digging into her head as if to dislodge a foreign presence in her mind.  As if they measured her ki, the torches had died to mere embers, leaving the warriors to fight the Sinistrals in the near darkness.  _Thank you, Iris, Tia thought with profound relief.  Her heart ached from her recent trial.  Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.  Her breath was raw in her throat as she made the second wish._

"I wish…for Maxim to be revived!"

The cup twinkled, the stars within it seeming to move.  Then they shot out of the chalice into the gloomy air, filling it with beautiful pure light.  Chills raced upon Tia's flesh as a portal, much like the one that Erim had summoned, opened before her.  Within stood a man.  He had not the grandeur of a Sinistral.  However, Tia knew him well, for he had been in her dreams many times before.  White light blazed behind him, the radiance of eternity.  Tia shielded her eyes.  How often she had dreamed of this day, of seeing her childhood friend and first love return.  The tears continued.  She did not brush them away.  Then she glimpsed Erim straightening from her seizure.  Tia heard Iris's urgent shout in her mind.  _Quickly, Tia!  Restore Selan before Erim…!_

Tia took a deep breath and gripped the chalice a little tighter.  Then, deciding it would be easier if she shut her eyes, she did so.  All the memories, all the old hopes she'd had for her and Maxim upon his return she stored away.  "The final wish," she whispered.

_No, you fool! _Erim shrieked.

The Mistress of Death's voice reverberated in Tia's mind.  Resolute and determined, Tia uttered the last of the wish.  "…I wish for the resurrection of Selan!"

"No!" Erim screamed.  Even with all her power, however, she could not stop the cup of wishes as its last bequest came to pass.  A portal blazing with white opened at Maxim's side.  An exquisite woman stepped forth from it, bringing with it, her own light.  

The cup of wishes, its wishes spent, shimmered in Tia's hands.  She closed her eyes tight against the light.  When she could see again, the cup was dust in her hands.  Tia sighed as she allowed the silver sand to fall through her hands like the countless stars she had glimpsed in the depths of the cup.  Before they reached the ground, the sand had vanished entirely.

"Damn you!" Erim screeched.  She charged at Tia with her sword held before her.

Tia looked up too late to get out of her way.  She gasped and remained frozen where she knelt.  Just when it seemed that Erim had secured Tia's doom, silver-blue ki flashed around Tia.  _Maxim's ki, _Tia realized as the warm light filled the space around her.  A sad smile formed on her lips.

Erim smashed into the barrier head-on and was flung to one side.  She toppled to her knees, panting.  "A curse on all of you," she rasped. "Maxim of the Doom Island Four!  You might have been mine!"

"Erim!"  Maxim's eyes were harsh.  "As you well know, there is only one whom I love."

Erim closed her eyes, perhaps to regain her composure.  Then she laughed.  "Fate may be leading you to another fight," she said.  "But…this is one battle that you will most certainly lose."

"What are you talking about?" Tia fumed.  "Maxim's worth ten of you!"

"Maybe so…"  Erim tossed her head.  "But we shall see how he fares with no weapons and without the divine armaments. Is it possible for a mortal to beat the Sinistrals without the Dual Blade?"

Tia's face turned chalk white.  Maxim reached for his sword, finding to his dismay that it was indeed, missing.  He was not discouraged, however.  "I need no weapons to vanquish evil!" Maxim declared.  "Prepare yourself to return to the darkness, Erim!"  Ki bubbled around him.

Erim laughed.  "I have no intention of fighting you, Maxim!  I have another vendetta to pursue!"  She looked at Tia pointedly.  "I think that you won't mind fighting Lord Daos, though, will you?"  She began her prayer to the Sinistral of Terror.

"We must stop her!" Selan shouted, preparing to charge at the Mistress of Death.

"Wait!" Maxim commanded, laying a strong hand on her shoulder.  "Remember that you too are weaponless, Selan. Furthermore, I am certain that Erim has a barrier around her."

"Well what should we do then?" Selan asked, frustrated.  "We can't be defeated here!  Who knows what the Sinistrals will do once they break free!"

"We must fight them," Maxim said.  He lowered his ki so that it vanished.  "That is all that we can do.  You and Tia can take on Erim, and I will fight Daos."

"But-" Selan protested.

"There is no other option," Maxim said.  "I can feel Artea and Guy's ki too, and Dekar and Lexis's, if I'm not mistaken.  They are fighting against Amon and Gades."

Selan shook her head, swinging her long green ponytail this way and that.  "This is simply bizarre!" she muttered.  "We must be destined to fight on this mortal realm."

"Actually it was pure accident that the Sinistrals revived," Tia said.  "Originally Artea started this journey to revive the two of you!"

"There is a balance at work here," Maxim muttered to himself.  Then he looked at Tia with that familiar smile.  "Tia…thank you…for restoring me to life."

Tia blushed and mumbled something.

"Yes, thank you," Selan said.  "I know what it must have cost you."

An enormous ki, the greatest in the room aside from Maxim's materialized at Iris's side.  The black portal opened with a groan like the dying.

"Daos," Maxim whispered.  Ki flared at his fingertips.  Similar ki surged about Selan.  Tia gave Selan her staff.  "Our packs have been scattered," Tia said.  "But I imagine that you can wield this better than I can."

"Thank you," Selan said with a smile.  "Maxim…"  She gently touched his shoulder.  "If Tia and I finish our battle with Erim, we will come help you.  You shouldn't have to fight alone."

"Thank you, my beloved," Maxim said, a peculiar shine in his eyes.  "We must come out of this alive, Selan.  Just think!  If we do, we will get to see Jeros again!"

"Yes, that's right, isn't it," Selan said, her eyes distant.

Tia's heart surged with a strange smattering of emotions: happiness for Maxim and Selan, bittersweet for not giving in to Erim's temptation, fear for the upcoming battle.  "Let's go, Selan," she said in a firm voice.

"What's this?" Maxim grinned at Tia.  "You actually want to fight, Tia?  This is new.  You seem to have gotten stronger since I was last with you."

"Just stay alive, Maxim," Tia managed to say as she flushed with mingled pride and indignation.  "You'll notice many things that have changed since you've been gone."

She was not certain if Maxim heard her or not.  His gaze was focused on the closing black portal.  Daos, Sinistral of Terror, had emerged.  His ki wove around him in vain strands all abuzz with bragging of their own magnificence.  Weaponless and unarmored, Maxim strode to meet the Sinistral.  Tia and Selan, meanwhile, advanced upon Erim. 


	16. Battle in hell

Chapter Sixteen: Battle in hell

            Guy's head reeled from Gades's Destruction Wave.  He leaned heavily on his sword, gasping for breath after burning breath.

            "You aren't giving up yet, are you?" Dekar asked.  Though there was a trace of his usual dry humor in the question, Guy could hear uncharacteristic genuine concern as well.

            "By no means!" Guy said.  "I'm just conserving strength for my ultimate attack!"

            "You mean you are keeping down to prevent your ultimate defeat!" Gades mocked.  Guy and Dekar had been fighting the giant warrior for some time now.  Both warriors were soaked in sweat.  However, Gades's strength and endurance were befitting of the title of Sinistral.  He did not even seem winded yet.

            "Taste my blade, Gades!" Guy yelled.  He flew at the warrior, swinging his blade in a wide arc.  It would have been a critical hit on any ordinary monster.  However, Gades was a giant, with power to match.  Guy's blow did not even faze him.

            "You foolish humans are nothing against me!" Gades thundered.

            "Ah, but you forget that you are up against the strongest man in the world!" Dekar baited him.  "Take this!"  With that, Dekar rushed the Sinistral.  His blade was a silver blur.  He managed to slice Gades's face.  Blood gushed from the slash.  

            "Damn you!" Gades growled.  "I will keep this scar as a badge of your defeat!"

            "Don't be so sure," Dekar warned him.  "It might end up as a mark of your defeat instead!"  The warrior crouched, a golden energy building up around him.  "Take this!  Blast Master!"  Gades reeled from the impact and sank to his knees.

            "Impossible!" he rasped, his breath like a bellows.  "What is this ki?"  

            Dekar crossed his arms with a self-satisfied smirk.  Guy, meanwhile, rushed in, intending to strike the finishing blow.  Before he could, Gades vanished.  Guy stopped where the Sinistral had knelt.  "Erim…"

            Dekar looked at him quizzically.

            "Erim must have taken him to heal his wounds," Guy said.  "Damn her!"

            "Forget about that," Dekar said.  "Let's go help Artea and Lexis!  They could probably use it."

            "Okay," Guy said, taking up the sword Gades had dropped.  The two warriors set off at a jog.  

            "You know, Guy," Dekar said.  "I was just thinking.  Perhaps I should have gone to Doom Island instead of you."

            Guy's temper flared with indignation.  "Gades would have crushed you like a bug," the blonde warrior countered.  By this time, they had reached Lexis and Artea, whose battle was still going strong.

            "Hey Artea!  Lexis!" Guy called.  "We thought you could use some help!"

            "By all means," Lexis beckoned to them with a smile.

            "Our mission is a success," Artea said, closing his eyes.  "Maxim has been revived and so has Selan.  Isn't it wonderful to feel their ki again, Guy?"

            "Huh?  They were revived?  When?"

"Only moments ago," Artea said, raising an eyebrow.

"Ohh," said Guy.  "I guess I wasn't paying attention, what with rescuing Dekar from Gades and all."

Dekar glared at Guy.  "You know you're only making it harder for yourself.  Wait 'til we have our fight!"

"Hah!" Guy said, turning to the golden-clad Sinistral of Chaos.  

"Shut up, you two!" Lexis admonished the arguing warriors.  "He's about to cast Ice Valk!"

Guy and Dekar looked at one another with mock anger that quickly dissolved into sheepish grins.  "How could you go wrong, Lexis?" Dekar said.  "After all, you do have the strongest man in the world fighting on your side!"  Lexis and Artea rolled their eyes.

Meanwhile, Amon finished the incantation for Ice Valk.  The Ice Queen materialized in a gust of frigid air.  Guy's skin pebbled, slowly losing sensation.  The Ice Queen was incredibly powerful when able to channel her spell through Amon's energy.  Snow began to build up beneath the party's feet.  However, the Ice Queen did not even seem tired.

"We have to disrupt this spell somehow!" Lexis shouted over the din of Ice Valk.  "We're going to freeze at this rate!"

"Leave that to me!" Dekar said with a wink.  He drew back and flung his axe – since his weapon had broken on the Copper Dragon's scales, he always carried a spare – right at the queen.  She opened her eyes, sensing in the wind that the axe was whirling end over end straight at her.  She gasped and made her escape.  The axe smashed into Amon's armor with a clang.  The Sinistral muttered a guttural curse.

"Got it!" Dekar said with a smile.

"Our turn now!" Lexis said.  

"Zap!" Artea shouted.  The white triangle formed underneath Amon's feet, locking him in place.  An explosion ripped through his body.  The Sinistral grunted.

"Star dust blow!" Lexis shouted.  Flames erupted from the scientist's hands in a spectacular array of gold and white.  

"When did you learn that spell?" Artea gasped.

"I had just enough ki built up from the damage Amon dealt me," Lexis said.  "This jewel enabled me to focus that energy to make that attack."

            "Truly the magic in this cave is beyond wonder!" Artea remarked with a distant look in his eyes.  Guy did not need to ask to know that the elf was thinking of his vanished ring.

            "Hmph!" Dekar scoffed.  "Magic is all well and good.  But I am of the opinion that nothing beats swords and strength.  Don't you agree with me, Guy?" 

            "Most definitely," Guy said.  He raised the sword that he had taken from the site where Gades had fallen.  "Octo Strike!"  The blonde warrior flew at Amon, the sword coming alive in his hands.  Silver ki radiated from the blade like sharp pinwheels.  Guy himself was a mere blur as he slashed at Amon once, twice, three times.

            "Incredible," Dekar whispered as he watched Guy cleave Amon's mystical armor.

            "Four, five, six, seven, eight!" Lexis counted incredulously.  "Guy has improved upon his sword technique much since he fought Gades.  I suppose that watching the Sinistral in action awoke some old fire inside of him."

            "Or perhaps it was the sword he took up after the Sinistral fell," Dekar commented wryly.

            Having completed Octo Strike, Guy returned to the ranks of the party.  He was breathing hard, and sweat shone on his skin.

            "Most impressive, Guy," Dekar said.  "Now, Amon, it's time for you to face the strongest man in the world!"

            "Oh gods!  Not that speel again," Guy groaned, sheathing his sword.

            "Prepare yourself, pompous insect," Amon rumbled.  "Chaos Wave!"

            Dekar, his mind set on using blast master, was thrown to the ground as Amon's energy wave broke free.  

            "Brace yourself!" Artea shouted.  Invisible waves of energy crashed into the party, chipping away at their mental defenses,.  Artea, Lexis, and Guy were prepared for Amon's attack.  Guy and Artea had seen it before, and Lexis knew from his extensive research what the ki of a Sinistral could do.  Dekar, however, was distracted and knew nothing of what Chaos Wave entailed.  As it was, the wave knocked him – strongest man in the world though he was –off his feet.  Amon laughed cruelly.

            "Dekar!  Are you okay?" Lexis gasped.  The scientist rushed to the warrior's side, remembering all too well the last time Dekar had fallen.

            "Lexis!" Artea shouted.  "Stay back!  You don't know what Amon's spell has done!"

            His warning was too late.  Barely had Lexis touched Dekar's motionless shoulders when the warrior jumped to his feet.  In the process, he shoved Lexis to the ground.  The scientist looked up at Dekar in shock, who had his sword held before him as if he meant to attack him.

            "Dekar!" Lexis shouted.  "Don't you know me?"

            In reply, Dekar ran the blade through Lexis's shoulder.  Lexis gasped as Dekar jerked his sword free.  Frantically the scientist pressed his hand to the gouge in his shoulder in an attempt to staunch the wound.  Blood stained his lab coat red.

            "_Lexis!" Guy yelled.  The blonde warrior dashed to his side to defend him._

            "Mwa hah hah hah!" Amon roared.  "That's right, you fool!  Attack your friends until they _DIE!"_

            Guy's sword crashed into Dekar's in a shower of sparks.  Dekar shrugged off the blow and swung at Guy, who parried.  Lexis's fingers drizzled red.

            "Dammit!" Artea cursed.  With the three of them out of the battle, that left him to face Amon.  The other three were perfect targets for Amon's attacks.  Sweat ran down Artea's face.  _If only Maxim could help us, _he thought desperately, though he knew that Maxim was locked in his own battle with Daos.  That left the elf to do what he could against the Sinistral…alone.

{****}

            Ki shook the ground and rattled every bone inside of Maxim's body.  He thought that he would pass out from the prolonged exertion.  Nonetheless, he knew that he could not forfeit this battle, any more than he could forfeit the last battle in Doom Island.  Thus far, however, Daos had only been toying with him, battling him with ki alone.  The Sinistral had not even needed to draw his sword.  

            "Surrender, puny man-being!"  Daos sneered.  "You aren't the victor of this battle!"  As if to prove his point, Daos sent a high concentration of ki against Maxim.  Maxim reeled at the unexpected move and dropped to his knees.  Sweat stung his eyes and stuck to his hair.  Nonetheless, he maintained his own barrier of ki. He found it an exquisite and somewhat regrettable irony that battle was the first task that awaited him upon his resurrection.

            "No!" Maxim growled, lacking the strength to say much else.

            "What?" Daos roared.  "You dare to defy me?!?!"

            "Yes!" Maxim answered, spitting blood to one side.  "And I will continue to do so until the moment I die again!"

            "That moment is soon coming, human!" Daos warned.  "Prepare yourself!"

{****}

            _Why did she do it? Selan wondered, holding Tia's staff in her hand.  As the blue-haired woman attacked Erim, Selan watched her closely.  _She loved Maxim as much as I did.  Yet she restored my life too…  _A strange feeling came over the green-haired warrior woman, so strong that it became energy with which she could fight.  Suddenly Selan knew the words to all the spells to which the cave erased the memory.  __We three are a triangle, she realized. __ Nothing else in the world connects us, save for the love of one man…Maxim.  And that connection is so powerful that it led us here…_

Selan could sense Erim's ki, dark, mysterious, even evil…  Yet within the Mistress of Death, she could sense another presence as well.  To her dismay, this being, too, loved Maxim.   Then Selan knew that the Mistress of Death was growing weaker from her costly resurrections that she had performed.

_Together, _Selan suddenly understood, _Tia and I, and that woman who is inside of the Mistress of Death, we three will rise against the Mistress of Death to destroy her. _

{****}

            Artea leaned heavily on his spear and bent to one side.  Tremendous rasps shook his frame as he coughed up blood.  Terror twisted his heart.  Amon, out of cruel pleasure, had targeted Artea exclusively while Dekar fought against Guy.  Artea was feeling the ill-effects of Amon's attacks to the point where he feared he might pass out.  Three rounds of battle had passed.  Artea knew that they had no curative items for Dekar's madness.  Guy had his hands full with dealing with the strongest man in the world, and Lexis had his own wound to worry about.  However, none of Artea's attacks against Amon were effective.  Amon had learned to defuse Zap and to disrupt the elf's summoning spells Firebird and Ice Valk.  Artea knew he was no match for the Sinistral in hand to hand combat.  _I have to do something! Artea thought frantically as his head began to spin.  Blearily he looked to Guy and Dekar's battle.  The two of them were crouched over their swords, their eyes smoldering.  Lexis looked remarkably pale.  Artea suspected that Amon's Chaos Wave had poisoned the scientist.  And, as luck would have it, the party had no antidotes either.  _

Artea was about to despair when he saw the opening between Dekar and Guy.  If he could just slip in and attack Dekar, the pain might free him from Amon's terrifying phantasms. The elf turned his back on Amon just as Dekar's Blast Master went off.  The elf gasped in pain as dirt and flame showered over him in turns.  He ran a hand over his brow where a huge gash had opened up.  Blood stung his eyes.  However, that was nothing compared to the beating that Guy and Lexis had taken.  Lexis was bent double over a gaping wound.  Guy's skin was raw from Dekar's Blast Master explosion. 

Artea's skin crawled with the harrowing way that the battle was going.  "Champion!"  He could not help but include Dekar in the spell's range.  He supposed it was for the better, since he would be attacking him in the next minute.  Just as the color returned to Lexis and Guy's faces, Artea stole to Dekar's side with the stealth of a stalking cat.  "Forgive me, Dekar," the elf whispered.  Dekar's face was no longer ghastly white from poisoning, but his clothes were in tatters.  Artea noticed an old wound on the warrior's left side.  The elf grimaced stabbed at the weak flesh.  Dekar's scream pierced deeper than the elf's enchanted spear did.  Artea reeled away from the warrior wondering if he had killed him.  Blood fountained from the opened wound.  Dekar swayed and dropped his sword so that he could cover the wound with both hands.  His jaw was tight and his eyes wide from pain.  However, Artea could tell that Dekar was no longer in Amon's thrall.  

"We must get back to the battle!" the elf yelled.  

Guy and Lexis spared Dekar a sympathetic looked as they staggered back to Amon with Artea.  Amon chuckled.  "Are you prepared to do that again?" the Sinistral asked.  "I have a special attack that I've prepared just for you – even made it stronger with the fear you are radiating.  Chaos Wave!"

Once again invisible energy tore through the group like a riptide.  Artea felt his mind getting dragged along against his will.  He gripped his spear tighter, allowing his ki to build.  At the last possible moment he released it just in time to deflect Amon's power.  He did not stop to see what the Chaos Wave had done to his comrades.  

"Dragon!" Artea screamed.  His spear flared with pale blue.  The energy was so immense that it knocked him to the ground.  From the spear emerged a dragon, fully as large as Amon himself, formed of shining water.  The dragon halted before Amon and screamed its challenge.  Amon raised his spear.  The dragon, however, clamped down on the end of the spear and tore it from the Sinistral's hands.  Amon growled, exerting ki to tear the dragon apart.  The dragon's outline wavered.  Then, with a sound like an ocean wave crashing on the rocks, the dragon broke into a million droplets.  Artea cried out in dismay, and he looked again at his wounded comrades.  Ki flared from the elf's body.  The dragon droplets sparkled and reassembled.  The embodiment of Artea's ire, the dragon dove at Amon.  The Sinistral raised his arm to block the blow, but the beast smashed into him.  This time the particles of the dragon entered Amon's body.  Light began to shine from within the Sinistral.  He fell to his knees, moaning as the beast devoured him from within.  Artea watched, horrified, as Amon vanished with a gurgling gasp.

"Erim again," Guy said bitterly.  "We must defeat her, or this battle will never end!"

Artea refrained from pointing out that even though they had beaten the Mistress of Death on Doom Island, her defeat in no way ensured the end of the conflict with the Sinistrals.  "Are all of you alright?" Artea asked.

Lexis struggled to his feet, swaying slightly from the poisoning he had incurred.  "I'll live," he said, straightening his cracked glasses.  "That was quick thinking on your part, Artea," the scientist said.  "How about you, Guy?"

"I think I'm getting old," Guy muttered, looking at the notches in his sword from his fight with Dekar.  "How is the strongest man in the world faring?"

Dekar groaned and said nothing.  His wound had not stopped weeping.  The warrior's face was ashen.

"Dekar," Lexis whispered.  "It's the old wound that the other Tia…no…_Erim couldn't heal.  Will you let me take a look at it?  I might not be able to heal it right now…  But I can make the bleeding stop."_

Dekar shook his head.  "We don't have time for that," he insisted, stubbornly rising to his feet.  The effort proved too much for him, however, and he hunched over.

"Don't strain yourself!" Lexis warned him.  "If you do, the damn thing might never close!"

"He is right, however," Artea said.  "Truly, we have no time.  We have as long as it takes Erim to cast her foul healing."  The elf's tones had no emotion in them whatsoever.

"Please trust me, Lexis," Dekar pleaded.  "I can make it to Erim.  _And_ I'll stay in the back!"

Lexis shook his head.  "I couldn't bear it if I had to tell Tia that you perished here after all."

Dekar flushed at the mention of Tia's name.  "That's right…Tia.  She's fighting Erim right now, isn't she?  Come on!" Dekar urged them.  "We have to go give her a hand!"

"There's no arguing with an idiot," Guy remarked.

"Hey!  I heard that!" Dekar snapped.

"At least press this against the wound," Lexis said, handing Dekar a handkerchief.  "Might as well make an effort to close it..."

"Yes, yes!" Dekar said rather ungratefully, for Artea and Guy had already started to follow Erim's trail of ki.  

"And Dekar," Lexis persisted.  "Be careful!  No Blast Masters or throwing axes this time, okay?"

"Okay, already!  I'm the strongest man in the world!" Dekar said.  "I'm not going to let a little cut take me down!"

{****}

            Selan could sense Artea and Guy's ki as they approached the rapidly ending battle with Erim.  The Mistress of Death was already weak from casting countless resurrections.  With Tia and Selan against her from without and Iris fighting her from within, the battle's outcome was not in the Sinistral's favor.  Throughout the fight, Selan was able to admire how much stronger Tia had become, how her true potential shined.  As Selan was about to cast the final blow that would defeat Erim, she was grateful that the Doom Island Four would all be together to face Daos.  She could feel that Maxim would need their help.

            "Fire Storm!"  Flames rained from Selan's sword as she struck at Erim, steel and sorcery woven together in an undefeatable technique.  The sickening sweet scent of charred flesh filled the air.  Erim screamed.  Her ki shot off sporadically.  Selan countered with her own burst of energy, protecting herself and Tia.  Erim gave ground, backing away slowly.  Selan sensed that she was about to make her escape.  She wondered if it was true that only the Dual Blade could truly defeat the Sinistrals.  The green-haired woman felt the presence of Iris, who was depleting Erim's energy from within.  Finally Erim gave in and vanished in the chime of a warp.

            "Where did she go?" Tia gasped.

            "To lick her wounds," Selan said.  Abruptly she realized that the situation was not good.  The Sinistrals could run to the ends of the earth after defeat.  It still took the Dual Blade to dispatch them completely.

            "What's wrong, Selan?" Guy asked as he and Artea joined the girls.

            "We need the Dual Blade," Selan said.  "Our power alone really isn't enough!"

"That can't be!" Guy protested.

"We'll see," Artea said.  "It sounds perfectly probable to me."

"Come on," Selan said.  "Maxim is fighting with Daos over there.  I bet that where we find Daos, we'll find Erim as well."

{****}  
            Maxim's ki ran through him so swift and furious that he felt that he must lose control of the power.  He panted, trying frantically to overpower Daos.  

The Sinistral smirked.  "You are mighty, mortal man.  But before me, you are still as a worm, though you are the greatest of your species."

            At last Daos did what Maxim had been hoping he would do, drawing on his blade.  However, Maxim wasn't certain how much more of Daos's power he could withstand.  Nonetheless, he persisted although Daos's power smashed even hope.  The Sinistral focused his energy in the blade and easily cut through Maxim's defense.  The impact flung Maxim backwards.  He smashed his head against the cave floor.  His vision swam.  Dimly he could hear his friends approaching.  He could also make out the hum of Daos's ki as he built up his power.  _No!  _he thought frantically.  _Please, stay back!_

{****}

            "Maxim!" Selan cried out.  Tears ran down her face.

            "Oh no," Tia whispered when she saw that Maxim had fallen.

            "Come on, Artea!" Guy shouted.  "We have to go help him!"

            Their weapons raised, Guy and Artea dashed towards Daos, not heeding the Sinistral's energies.  Before they could reach him, a flash burst before their eyes.  A green-haired woman clad in red materialized.  "Wait!" she begged them.  "Do not rush carelessly into the arms of death!   You who are half of the Doom Island Four!"

            "Iris?" Artea gasped in disbelief.

            "Get out of our way!" Guy snarled.  "We're no good as the Doom Island Four if Maxim isn't with us!"

            "Just trust in me," Iris commanded him, bowing her head.  "Maxim isn't going anywhere if I have a say in it."

            "But you're the Mistress of Death!" Guy protested.  "Why would you help us?"

            "_I am Iris," Iris replied to Guy's confusion.  "__Erim is the Mistress of Death.  Now do you see?"_

            "A split personality," Artea mused.

            "Huh?" Guy said.

            "Oh forget it," Artea said.

{****}

            _Maxim…  The gentle voice in his mind…he felt that he knew it from somewhere.  Then memories melded.  _

            _Iris! _

_            Yes, Maxim.  It is I.  Listen.  The __Doom__Island__ Four are mighty beings.  But the Sinistrals cannot be completely dispatched without the Dual Blade._

_            So it is true…  _Maxim remembered the three Mystic Stones he had destroyed to save Parcelyte from being crushed by Doom Island.  The third stone had claimed both the warrior's life and his sword.

            _That does not matter, Maxim, Iris said, knowing these things as she always had.  __The Dual Blade is more than a tangible weapon.  It is also energy, which you can call to you in times of crisis.  Admittedly, it takes powerful resolve.   But I think that you and your friends can do it._

_            Iris wait!  _She was gone.  Maxim opened his eyes to see his friends standing outside of Daos's barrier.  _Selan!  Tell everyone to focus their hearts on me!  Iris has told me a way that I can call back the Dual Blade!_

{****}

            _But Maxim!  Can you beat Daos on your own?_

_            I won't be alone!  This sword will embody all of your strength!  Everyone's!  All they can give!  Even Tia, Lexis, and Dekar!_

_            I think I understand, Maxim!  Be ready!  _Selan opened her eyes.  "Everyone," she said in an ominous tone.  "This is the deciding moment.  We cannot get past Daos's barrier to fight.  However, we can send our ki.  It will embody our wishes and help Maxim to carry them out."  Selan closed her eyes.  Silver ki blazed from her body like sunlit frost.

            "Maxim," Artea whispered, adding his ki to Selan's.  Guy too added his ki to the warrior woman's.  By this time, the energy that Selan had amassed had begun to throb.

             "I think that Maxim will need your energy too," Artea said, looking at Tia, Lexis, and Dekar.

            "Okay," Tia said.  She closed her eyes tightly.  For a moment, nothing happened.  Then ki flashed about her, fading in and out.  Gradually it stayed until it formed a solid aura about her.

"Me too," Dekar said.  "And no, I won't overexert myself, Lexis," the warrior said.  Like Tia's, his ki flickered like a candle at first, eventually solidifying.  By this time, Artea, Selan, and Guy had raised their ki to the next level.  The ball of ki that hung suspended above Selan's hands had expanded so much that she could not have wrapped her arms around it.  When Dekar added his energy, sparks began to flare at the edges.  Tiny rings began to branch off the edges, zipping and hissing before they returned to the orb that was their source.  

"It doesn't seem very scientific," Lexis admitted.  "But I might as well give it a shot.  Who knows?  This might be my next breaking theory."  The scientist's ki ruffled his bangs and stirred his lab coat.  The collected power had grown so much that Selan needed Artea's help to keep it from going off like a bomb.

"The concentration of this thing is enormous," Artea said, straining to contain it.  "But it's still not enough!  We need more power!"  The elf closed his eyes.  "Truly, the potential of the Dual Blade must be beyond all measure!"

"This is as hard as fighting," Guy wheezed.

"Please hurry, everyone," Selan pleaded.  "The Dual Blade will do no good if Maxim is not alive to use it!"  Her urgent plea woke a secret reserve of power in the Doom Island four.  Selan's body began to shine white.  The sparkle passed to Artea and then to Guy.  The accumulated energy that Selan and Artea held expanded yet again in the violent fashion of a growing star.  "Guy!" Selan gasped.  "We need your help here!"

"No sweat!" Guy said.  "Whoa," he said as he put his hands underneath the ki.  "This is amazing!  How did Maxim ever control a blade of such power?" the warrior marveled.

"He is an incredible man," Tia said, placing her own hands underneath the ki.  The energy became to rumble and sputter.  _We're almost there, _Selan realized.  "Lexis, Dekar…come over here and help us send this thing off!"

The scientist and the warrior did so.  The ki flashed beneath the fan of outstretched hands.  Ghostly 

silver gave way to solid white.  The white pulsated and turned blue.  "Now!" Selan shouted, though she wasn't really certain what would happen next.  She turned, barely able to glimpse Maxim through the massive barrier Daos had woven.  "Send this energy to Maxim," she told everyone.  "He's the only who can make it ring like the Dual Blade!"

            They launched the ki, which was simultaneously heavy and light in the odd nature of energy, at the barrier.  "Get back!" Artea warned.  "There might be an explosion when the two powers collide!"

            The party scurried out of the way.  Only Selan and Tia remained, dangerously close to the barrier, to make certain that Maxim got the energy.  Roaring and rumbling, ki strained against ki.  The barrier held fast before the ki that Maxim's friends had gathered.  "It can't make it through," Tia whispered in dismay.

The orb continued to strain against the blockade.  At length, it drew back almost to where Selan and Tia stood.  Then it lurched forward, gathering speed to crash into the barrier.  When the orb hit, the resulting explosion knocked Tia and Selan off their feet.  The two women recovered quickly, however.  They grinned at one another in triumph.  The energy formed of their wishes had broken through Daos's barrier.

{****}

            Maxim panted raggedly.  Daos perceived his weakness and brought his sword smashing down around him.  He only gouged a hole in the ground and notched the blade.  Maxim rolled away to safety.  _I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, _he thought.  Without the Dual Blade, Daos was a nearly impossible opponent.  Maxim supposed that the Dual Blade had given him some sort of insight and increased agility.  Or perhaps it wasn't the Dual Blade at all, but the presence of his friends fighting at his side.  It didn't really matter, however.  Maxim knew when he was beaten, and this was one of those moments.  Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Maxim prepared to make his last stand.  An explosion from behind him knocked him flat.  He lay on the ground, his lungs on fire.  Daos, too, had been caught in the blast of unknown origin.  He covered his eyes with his hands, groaning in pain.  Maxim looked around to see if he could find a source from the powerful ki.  Then he saw her, the woman in red.

            "Iris," Maxim said.  "Are you here to fight alongside Daos?"

            "No," Iris replied in her gentle voice that gave no clue to her great power.  "I am here…for you."

            "For me?  I don't understand."

            "I bring a gift for you…from your friends."  Iris spread her hands.  Ki bloomed from her palms in such bounty that Maxim was startled.  "It is up to you what you do with it.  Open your hands and receive it."

            Startled, Maxim did so.  "What do I do with it?" he asked her.

            "That is a vast amount of ki," Iris said as she walked away.  "Think of what I said to you before about the Dual Blade."

            Suddenly Maxim understood what she was talking about.  "Thank you, Iris," he said.  He studied the ki in his hands.  He could sense the energies of the other Doom Island Four as if they stood right by his side.  Yet there were other powers mingled here as well.  "Dekar…Lexis…and…Tia!"  Maxim's own ki flared with renewed vigor until he appeared as a man aflame.  At the sight of the new light, Daos moaned and hid his face in his cloak.  Maxim added his own power to the substantial ki, molding it, working it without method, without knowledge.  Somehow he knew he was searching for the Dual Blade in the midst of all this gathered power.  At last he felt the pommel in his hand.  Because the light had faded, Daos dared to show his face again.  His cold eyes were unreadable when he saw that Maxim had a weapon at last.

            "So, Maxim…  You at last managed to call a weapon to you.  Not that it will do you much good as insubstantial as it is."  The Sinistral laughed cruelly.  "Come.  Let us finish this!"  He swung his sword at Maxim.  Moments before, Maxim would have dodged the blow.  This time, however, he raised his own sword to parry.  The blade, he noticed was transparent.  Within it swirled ghostly particles that looked like blizzard snows.  However, Maxim knew they were particles of ki.  His sword met Daos's with a crash.  With more strength than he knew he had left, Maxim shoved back at Daos's enormous sword.  Daos swore as Maxim shrugged off his blow.

            "Damn you!" the Sinistral roared.  "What weapon have you summoned to you?"

            Just as the Sinistral asked the question, the spectral sword in Maxim's hand began to emit a silver-blue aura.  To his horror, the Sinistral could make out a low ringing, the sound which only the most powerful of ki could make.  "No! It is impossible!"

            "Then you have the impossible before you!" Maxim shouted, beginning an attack of his own.  The sword became a silver arch.  Sparks flew from both blades at they met in crashes that resounded to the ends of the chamber.

            "It cannot be…"  Daos rasped.

            "Yes!"  Maxim paused, his eyes locking with Daos's.  "It is the Dual Blade, reborn from the wishes and ki of the Doom Island Four and the other people who are dear to me!  You Sinistrals will never prevail against us!"

            "How is that so?  Power is power, no matter who wields it.  And who is more fitting for it?  A puny man being, or a mighty Sinistral?"  Daos swung his sword wildly.  Maxim's heart caught in his throat as he parried strike for strike.  Though Daos had yet to land a blow on him, he knew that he was losing ground.  The Dual Blade would do him no good if he were destroyed by Daos's hellacious barrier.

            "You Sinistrals are mighty by yourselves, it is true…" Maxim conceded.  "But you are solitary beings!  You have no feelings for one another!"

            "Those things are marks of weaknesses appropriate for humans like you!" Daos retorted.  Golden sparks flew from his blade.  Maxim shuddered under the ferocious blow.

            "They can be weaknesses," Maxim agreed.  "But…they are also the thing that unites us in battle!  Our comrades are the reason we fight on when we despair, the reason we have faith despite our doubts!"

            "Nonsense!" Daos snarled, having little breath for anything but fighting now.

            Maxim began to gain ground again.  "You are fooling yourself not believing me, Daos.  Just as we humans fool ourselves when we deny your existence!  The proof is before you in me and the reborn Dual Blade!"  Maxim feinted to the left.  Daos clumsily attempted to parry.  Maxim slashed the Sinistral of Terror on his left side.  A river of blood ran from the wound.  

Daos grunted.  "I will never concede that such feeble beings can wield the Dual Blade!"

"That's as may be," Maxim said.  Power blazed from his bloodied sword and shone red in his eyes.  "But together, we 'weak' humans, as you call us, are capable of anything – even overcoming Super Beings like you!"

"No!" Daos gasped, backing away from Maxim.  The light of the Sinistral's sword was slowly dying.  "Erim, damn you!" Daos hissed through his clenched teeth. 

"Wave Motion!"  Maxim's sword resonated with a ringing like an anvil on a fiery forge.  

Daos screamed, clutching at his head.  "Stop the sound!  _Stop the sound_!  _Erim!"_

A red aura arose around Maxim as his wounds and weariness disappeared.  "I shall end this for you, Daos," Maxim growled.  His eyes blazed with the fires of the Dual Blade.  With that, Maxim raised the blade and brought it crashing down, cleaving the Sinistral's life from him.  His opponent vanquished, Maxim nearly collapsed.  He rammed the Dual Blade into the ground, trying to stay upright.  His breathing came painfully.  

"Maxim!  You did it!"  Selan's voice at his side.

"We all believed in you," Artea said.  "Thank goodness you came through for us."  He smiled.

"It wasn't just me who fought the battle," Maxim reminded them.  He raised the Dual Blade, watching the light dance inside of it.  "I had all of you there with me."  His face broke into a smile.  "Thank you, everyone," he whispered.

"Maxim, are you getting emotional?" Guy asked teasingly.

"Leave him alone," Dekar said.

"That leaves one Sinistral for us to defeat," Tia said in a small voice.  "Erim…"

{**********************************************************************************************************}

Hee hee.  You know, Doc, I'm not really a fan of Maxim either.  I laughed for almost a half an hour when I first saw his sprite (no joke!)  I kept hoping he would die like Crono did so I could be rid of him for a while, but no joy.  Sigh.  I'm incredibly glad that you're still reading.  Thx for sticking around and for your good wishes w/r to college.  The gods know I'm going to need it.  I'm such a spaz.  ^_^


	17. Iris’s Memories

Chapter Seventeen: Iris's Memories

Maxim looked at the Dual Blade with regret.  "I don't know if I can…" he confessed.  "She may be Erim, but she is also Iris."

"Maxim…" Selan whispered, gently touching his shoulder.  "Sometimes we have to make a sacrifice for the greater good."

"But-" Maxim protested.  His eyes looked suspiciously shiny.

"You have a gentle heart, Maxim.  That is most admirable."  The crystal bell chime of warp.  Iris stood before Maxim.  "However…"  The green-haired woman bowed her head.  "Your beloved is right.  Please believe me when I say I will bear you no malice."

"No!  I can't!" Maxim's voice had grown husky.

"You _must!  You have a choice, Maxim.  You always have.  You can slay me, or Erim can resurrect the Sinistrals, who will make short work of your battle-weary friends."  Iris's eyes were cold as she spoke the words._

Maxim's face turned ashen with pain.  "You leave me no choice then," the warrior said, unable to look at the green-haired woman.  "Please forgive me, Iris.  I do this but to abort the sins of the other you."

"I understand," Iris said softly.

Tia shivered. Her flesh felt as if it were prickled by tiny needles.  She knew that of all the party members, she best understood Iris's plight.

Maxim raised the Dual Blade.  Its ringing had dulled to a distant drone.  Then the sword's light flashed, and its hum grew louder.  As the sword sped onward to cleave Erim and Iris, the ringing of the Dual Blade increased in pitch.  As it touched Iris herself, the sword began to scream.  Maxim could not bear to look as he cleaved the young woman's life away from her.  Only remembering her threat of Erim's certain action kept his hands steady on the pommel.  At last the deed was done.  Iris smiled at Maxim, blood streaming from her vanishing body.  "Thank you, Maxim," she whispered.  "I know what this must have cost you.  But now…you and your friends are safe."  Iris's eyes were closing and her lips moving as if in prayer.  

Maxim's heart ached, but it was a cleansing pain.  Suddenly Maxim felt removed from his body, much in the way that he had when he had died the first time.  _What is going on? he wondered.  Looking around, he saw that he was in a small shrine.  Outside waved the needles of pine trees.  Inside, the woodland shrine was perfumed with the sweet scent of pine and many other trees.  The simple pews were formed of wood, as was the altar.  At the altar sat a young girl in red robes.  Her long green hair hung down her back, a shining river._

_Iris! _Maxim thought.  Suddenly he remembered his own death.  He dimly recalled that his memories had flashed before his eyes before he perished.  _Is it so with Iris? _he wondered.  _Why is she showing me her past?  The warrior sighed and sat down in one of the pews so he could observe the girl in red.  To his discomfiture, he could see right through his body to the pew.  He had plenty of time to acclimate to his strange state, however.  Iris did not move from her prayers until the sun hung low in the sky.  When she at last rose, Maxim felt himself pulled irresistibly along the forest path behind her.  He watched her for days, which took on a distinct pattern.  Iris would watch the sun set through the thinner portions of the forest canopy, wake before sunrise, and walk to the shrine in the light of the early morning.  There she would pray until late afternoon.  On the evening of the third day, Maxim caught a glimpse of Iris, in a state as transparent as he was._

_Maxim, _Iris said.  _You see me as I was…a devout maiden of the shrine._

_Why are you showing me this? _Maxim demanded.  _What is happening in the ancient cave?  How long are you going to keep me here in this world of your memories?_

Iris looked at Maxim in confusion for a moment and then laughed.  It was uncharacteristic, a laugh coming from this somber young woman.  _Fear not, Maxim.  These images only seem to pass in the course of a life time.  You will return to the very moment you left.  So do not worry, impatient one.  As to why I brought you here…well…you will understand in time.  Perhaps it is only to assuage your own guilt.  Only trust me…and look with an open heart._

_I don't understand what I'm seeing, though, _Maxim protested.  _You were a shrine maiden, I gather.  But…_

_That is why I have come…to explain to you what happened, _Iris said.  _Do you know what I prayed for in that shrine for such a long time?  It was always the same thing._

_No.  I didn't hear you say anything…_

Iris laughed again.  _I prayed that I would never die, but that I would be reborn again in an endless cycle like the seasons, which seem to die forever and then are born again when you least expect it._

Maxim gasped.  _And…_

_Watch, _Iris commanded him.

Maxim watched in fascination as the Iris of memory continued her incessant prayers.  Then one evening, when frost covered the shrine windows, when wind whipped through the trees with bitter cold, another figure entered the shrine to pray.  Iris of memory was so immersed in her prayer that she did not hear the person come up behind her.  Maxim recognized the ki beneath the black robes as that of Erim.  Yet this energy pattern was slightly different from the one to which he was accustomed because Iris was separate from it.  Erim clapped her hand on the red-clad girl's shoulder.  Iris jerked up, horrified.

"Who are you?" the shrine maiden gasped.

Erim laughed and threw back her hood.  "I am Erim, the Mistress of Death.  The answer to your prayers!"

Maxim watched in horror and helpless frustration as Erim cornered Iris and cast the spell that bound the two of them together.

_Without me, she never would have fallen in love with you, nor would she have been able to walk for long among mortal men, _Iris told Maxim. _ Long have I regretted my selfish prayers.  I have wished many times that I could take them back.  As it is, however, I am a part of a being that kills the innocent and revives other destroyers even more powerful than herself.  It is a wretched existence that blasphemes against all of the shrine's teachings.  I do what I can, offering prayers to the dead and sacrificing myself time and time again.  Every death I experience, I hope for redemption.  I fear, however, that I have damned myself to Purgatory if I ever stay dead long enough to get there.  Yet I have no fear of death now, myself.  For I remember well my own prayers.  They bind me to destined rebirth, no matter how many times I die._

Maxim gasped, so overcome that he could barely speak.  _Iris…    _

_I know what you are going to say, Maxim.  And the answer is no.  I brought this upon myself, and I must get myself out of it.  There is no other way.  No matter how many times you slay her, Erim will remain a part of me.  I only hope…that we do not meet again in battle._

_Iris!  _Maxim's heart surged with sorrow.  However, the shrine before him was already fading in a wash of colors and darkness…Erim and Iris…fading…  

{**********************************************************************************************************}

Iris is one of my favorite characters in the game, btw.  I guess it shows, ne?  Maybe b/c she has her own theme…and of course, the possibilities for a split personality…  Wait, what am I doing chattering like this?  This is just what the time management section in my psychology book warned against… ^_^ **grumble, mutter**  


	18. Escape!

Chapter Eighteen: Escape!

            "Maxim!  Maxim!" 

            Someone was calling to him. The warrior opened his eyes slowly.  It was Selan, his beloved.

            "Are you okay?" Selan asked him.

            Maxim nodded.  "Yes."  He forced himself not to look at Iris's fallen body.  "Iris had something she wanted to tell me before she died.  That's all."  He took Selan's hand in his, enjoying the feeling of her gentle warmth against his.

"Ungh…"  The party members all turned at the sound, which sounded like a zombie hauling itself out of its grave.  "Good gods!" M'hana muttered, pulling the flattened cookpot off of her head.  "How long have I been out of it?"

"Only for the entire battle," Artea snapped.  "You lazy sneak thief!"

M'hana dropped the cookpot to the floor.  "Shut up, you foppy elf!  If I didn't need Providence to get out of this stinking hell, I would cut your ears off!"  She drew a gleaming dirk from out of her sleeve.

"Hey, hey, you two!" Guy intervened.  "Don't kill each other this close to our departure."

M'hana complied with sulky silence.  Artea rolled his eyes.

Suddenly a chill raced up Maxim's spine.  He could hear voices that sounded suspiciously like the Gades, Amon, and Daos.  However he could not sense any ki from them.  "Artea," Maxim whispered.  "Do you hear that?"

The elf nodded.  "Erim wasted much of her strength pulling the Sinistrals from battle just before they died," he said.  "Perhaps she was the most mortal of all of them," the elf reflected.

Maxim sighed.  "What should we do about them?" he wondered.  "I can't sense any ki at all.  Does that mean that they're dead?"

"Might as well be, I suppose," Lexis said.  "If they aren't solid, they can't fight anyone, right?"

"I don't know," Selan pointed out.  "They killed me while they weren't 'solid' and nearly dropped Doom Island on Parcelyte."  She cupped her hands around her ears and shuddered at the disembodied voices.

"Good point," the scientist said.  "So what do we do about them?"

Maxim was just about to suggest that the party combine energies into the reborn Dual Blade when the eerie voices ceased altogether.

"I don't hear them anymore," Guy said.  "This is getting creepy.  Do you suppose they just died without us?"

"That must be it," Lexis said.  "They were all pretty weak when Erim hauled them away from battle."

"Let's just get out of this place," Dekar said.  "There's not much they can do trapped down here, since the stairs don't go up, right?"

In the end, the parties were fortunate that they both had found Providence.  They exited in two parties, one with Tia, Lexis, Dekar, and M'hana (so that the elf and the thief would not kill each other, as Guy put it).  The Doom Island Four comprised the second party.  When they emerged in the interior of the cave, the warping room became uncomfortably crowded, owing to Guy's setting off Providence too soon ("I've always wanted to experiment more with magic!").  

The Cave Corpse, the old man who charged a fee for entering the cave, gasped when he saw the first party emerging.  "Well I'll be damned," he said, goggling.  "You brought out more people than you brought in!"  He looked at Tia meaningfully.  "And you look a little stronger than you did when you came in, young lady."  Tia did not have a chance to answer the old man, as M'hana had stormed up to his enormous table.  

"You swindling old crook!" the thief growled, her dirk flashing.  "I ought to cut you to ribbons!"

"Whatever for?" the Cave Corpse asked sociably.  He seemed quite accustomed to her accusations.  

"First of all, for bad lighting!  Do you have any idea how many stairs I feel down?  How many treasure chests I tripped over because it's so damned dark down there?"  Her voice rose.

"Would you shut up?" the Cave Corpse asked, getting annoyed.  "You're going to discourage my other customers!"

M'hana paid his words no heed, speaking louder, if anything.  

By this time, the Doom Island Four had managed to make their way out of the warping exit.  The Cave Corpse turned positively green when he saw Maxim and Selan.  "Hey, hey now!" the old man snapped.  "Your party should have a bill for coming up with extra persons!"

"Feh!  What a load of bull!" M'hana scoffed.  "You're a userous old coot, you know that?"  The old man bellowed at her.  

Artea looked back at them and rolled his eyes.   The rest of the party looked similarly unimpressed. Then it was as if a sudden inspiration had hit the elf.  "Let's go, everyone," he said.

"What about-" Guy started to say.  "_Ohh," the warrior said, suddenly understanding the point the elf was trying to make.  _

"She'll never miss us," Artea promised as the party exited the cave.  He had planned on making a hasty escape to Elcid or some equally distant place where the thief could not follow.  However, the sensation of sunshine and the gentle breeze on his face drove the words to Warp right out of his mind.  The elf closed his eyes, breathing in the clean air thankfully.  "Isn't it heavenly," he whispered.

The other party members appeared similarly affected by their return to the surface.

"It is as beautiful as I remember it," Selan sighed, looking at the green hills which gave way to dark, craggy cliffs, which in turn, overlooked the crashing blue ocean.  "Maxim, isn't it wonderful to be alive again?"  She spread her arms as if to embrace the sunlight.

Maxim smiled the smile that Tia knew from all their time together.  "Yes," he said, putting his arms around his wife in a gentle embrace.  As he did so, Tia felt none of the old pain in her heart.  It was as if the wound had at last begun to heal.  When she looked away from Maxim and Selan, Tia saw Dekar looking at her with longing in his eyes.  She remembered the kiss he had given her in the cave.  Though she did not return his feelings, she knew that what he had told her about happiness that had saved her, Maxim, Selan – the entire party, in actuality.  She conveyed these emotions with a glance.  Dekar looked a little sad at first, and his hand went to his wound.  Then at last, he smiled back at her, a smile of forgiveness that seemed to welcome her to his side if ever she wanted to be there.

"So where do we go from here?" Lexis said at last.  The other six party members looked at the scientist as he asked his question, each person with varying expressions of wonder and confusion.  

"I suppose Lexis has a point," Maxim said.  "You have completed your quest."

"For which we thank you," Selan said, bowing.  She elbowed Maxim.  "Even leaders thank the people who help them, dear," she said with an edge in her voice.

Maxim coughed.  "True," he said, his eyes merry.  "Thank you.  I suppose it goes without saying that the two of us can never repay you."

"The world can never repay the two of you," Artea said.  "Particularly those in Parcelyte."  

By this time, the sun was low in the horizon.  Dimly the party heard shouts from the opening to the Ancient Cave.  It sounded as if a brawl had ensued inside.

"I guess I will answer my own question then," Lexis said.  "We all have our own lives to which to return.  But we should not forget about one another.  Fate has brought us together for a reason and may reunite us again, be the time peaceful or not."

"Right!" Tia agreed.  "And with Thom's pigeons, we can all stay in touch!"

"Thom?" Maxim said.

"Pigeons?" Selan said.

            Artea laughed at the sight of the confused couple.  "I know what you mean, Tia.  For now, everyone, I can warp people where they wish to go."

            "Me too," Selan chimed in.

            "I have a Warp Spell handy myself," Lexis said.

            "I'll come with you two to Parcelyte," Guy said to Maxim and Selan, who exchanged conspiratorial looks.  "Did I tell you that Jesse and I broke up?" Tia heard him say as Selan, Maxim, and he warped away.

            "Lexis, can you warp me to Dankirk?" Dekar asked.

            "I can," Lexis said.  "Let's stop off in Gruberick's shrine and get these wounds of ours healed."

            "It's only a scratch…" Dekar protested.

            The scientist and the strongest man in the world vanished in the crystal bell chime, leaving Artea and Tia alone with the purple horizon.  "Well, Tia," Artea said when the sun had at last spread its veil of glittering stars.  "Where would you like to go?"

            Tia thought for a moment.  She could choose to go anywhere in the world.  The elf had the power to take her there.  Yet at the moment she wanted nothing more than a little rest and clean clothes for a change.  "Would you take me to Elcid, Artea?" she whispered, not certain why she felt compelled to do so.

            The elf nodded.  "Are you certain?  I can take you anywhere you wish."

            "Adventures are all well and good," Tia said, "but one at a time is more than good enough for me."

            Artea smiled.  "So be it.  Warp!"

            In mere seconds, Tia and Artea were on the outskirts of Elcid.  The city was a shadow against the darkness, though a few lights shone in places.  Never had the night smelled so very sweet, like iris and priphea cloying on the breeze.  Tia remained at Artea's side for several minutes, simply looking on the beautiful little city she had dreamed of in the cave.  "Artea," she said at last.  "Where are you going to go now that this journey is at an end?"

            Artea did not speak for some time.  When he did at last, his voice was thick with pain.  "I cannot go back to Eserikto.  I fear what my kin will do if I return with my mission a success."  

Tia's heart went out to the elf.  "You could stay here in Elcid," she offered, knowing, even as she did so, that he would never consent.  "It would be different from what you are accustomed to, but…"

"You are kind, Tia.  However, I have no wish to live amongst humans.  I will find solace in the wilderness."

"Will we ever see you again?"  By 'we', she meant the Maxim and his other companions.

"Possibly," Artea said.  "Lexis had a good point when he said that fate seems determined to reunite us.  If fate sees good to do so, then yes, we shall meet again."

Tia frowned.  "What about spontaneous effort?" she persisted.  "Surely one of the Doom Island Four would exert more of it than that."

Artea laughed, a gentle, silvery sound.  "If the desire ever seizes me to emerge from solitude, you six will be the first people I seek out.  How's that?"

Tia touched his arm gently.  "Don't be a stranger," she said.

Artea bowed and set off for the forest behind Elcid.  Tia watched his shadow stretch long in the moonlight.  When she could no longer see the elf, she turned back to the sleeping town.  She walked to her house, savoring the quiet and the absence of monsters.  For a moment she lingered upon the bridge, watching the silver light of the moon dance in the ripples below.  The hush of placid slumber held the town in thrall.  Tia felt that even if she were to shout, it would not awaken anyone or disturb the stillness.  She withdrew her key from under the mat and opened the door to her house.  The aroma of Ami's wonderful cooking reached every corner.  Tia's mouth watered as she shut the door.  She made a mental note to swipe some of Ami's food when she arrived in the morning.  She smiled when she thought of how her friend would react to find Tia home after all this time.  How long had it been, for that matter?  Tia peeled off her grimy dress, envisioning Ami's reaction to the cave dirt crumbs caked all over the floor.  And what would Ami think of the ruined dress for that matter?  Tia yawned and pulled on a white nightdress.  There would be ample time for washing and combing her hair when she had rested…when the sun had risen.  She fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Tia was roused by Ami throwing her arms around her neck.  "Ami?" she croaked, groggy from sleep.

"You came back!  You really came back!" Ami whispered.  Tia opened her eyes, still sensitive to the light, and saw that Ami was crying.

"Of course I came back," Tia said, sitting up slowly.

Ami continued to carry on as dramatically as if Tia had spent an eternity away from Elcid.  "Oh I've missed you, Tia!"

"I've missed you," Tia replied, hugging her friend back at last.  Realizing that there was no more sleep in her, she got up.  "Ami, could you do me a favor?"

"Yes!  Anything!"

"Make me some food," Tia said.  "I smelled it coming in last night…"

"Oh, you poor dear," Ami said.  "You really should see your reflection in an honest mirror.  You look as if you've starved while you were on your adventure!"  She held up an ivory-backed mirror for Tia's inspection.  Tia looked at her wan reflection hesitantly, remembering her dream about the mirror.  However, her reflection moved just as she did, even when she waggled her tongue like a demon.  Ami laughed at her antics as she set a pot of water on the stove to boil and began to prepare the food for that day.  Tia busied herself with combing out her hair.  To her surprise, it smelled musty, just like the cave.   If she closed her eyes, she could almost see the torches, glinting like distant stars in the darkness.  When she had bathed to her content, wallowing about in a tub of hot water and washing her hair, she made short work of three plates Ami filled for her, plates of eggs, sausage, bacon, rice, and fresh bread and butter.  Ami goggled at Tia's appetite, clucking over her like a mother hen all the while.  Finally when Tia had satiated her wolfish appetite, she pushed her chair back.  "Ami, I cannot thank you enough for your help.  Without your insight, I am certain that the weapons shop would have lost all its business.  And I am positive that I will never be able to repay you for continuing while I was away."

"Oh Tia," Ami said wistfully.  "You've changed since you were away."

"How so?" Tia asked as she put on a new frock, one of china blue that brought out the azure of her hair.  

"Something restless inside of you seems to have been tempered.  Your eyes aren't always drifting to the horizon now."  Ami began to prepare the next batch of breakfast bread, which she flavored with her own dash of cinnamon.

"It won't last," Tia promised with a little laugh.  Ami looked up at her, surprised.  "I just want to take a little rest before I go on my next adventure…whatever and wherever it might be."

"Next adventure?" Ami echoed in disbelief.  She sighed.  "Tia, Tia, Tia," she chided as she measured out the cinnamon and sugar.

Tia gathered her filthy dress in a crumpled heap.  She wondered if she would ever be able to scrub it clean of the dirt and evil smell of grave soil that had seeped into its very fabric.  _Even then, she thought, __there are rips that might never be repaired.  She sighed.  _I suppose I could burn it, _she thought.  Somehow the evil of the ancient dungeon seemed greater in contrast with this realm of sunlight and fresh air.  Still pondering the cave and all the strange things that had transpired there, Tia found herself wandering outside, the dress in her hands.  Then she remembered the other person she wanted to see in Elcid besides Ami.  Thom!  __This time I'll have a story to tell him, she thought eagerly.  She walked to the shrine.  The few people that she encountered cringed at the smell of her dress.  Tia hardly noticed them, however.  _

When she reached the bird keeper's spot, he was nowhere to be found.  The birds' cages were all opened.  Many pigeons had stayed inside.  Some, however, were cooing from the treetops.  Tia knew that Thom often opened the cages at night to let the birds out.  However, she had never known him to simply leave them alone like this.  She settled down with her back to one of the trees.  She could wait for him, she supposed.  Minutes stretched into an hour.  The heat and the soothing coo of the birds, combined with the sweet scent of yellow summer grass, lulled Tia to sleep.  When she awoke, the shadows were long and dark.  Still there was no sign of Thom.  Tia yawned.  Then she sat up.  Where had the bird keeper gone?  She remembered that he was an older man.  Could he have died?  Her heart ached at the thought.  _Because of him, I was able to go on the adventure to the __Ancient__Cave__, she thought.  __He just can't be dead! _

Just as sorrow was about to wash through her veins, she heard the rustle of wings above her.  Snow white feathers danced down through the still air.  A rather hefty envelope bearing a thick red seal bounced off of Tia's head.  The bird perched on the edge of its fellows' cage and cocked its head intelligently.  Tia read the envelope.  _Tia of Elcid.  Her heart pounding, she cracked the seal.  Who could have sent it?  It was not Artea's spidery elven script.  The letters were far bolder and grander as if they had been formed with thicker, heavier fingers than the elf's lithe, delicate ones.  Tia unfolded the parchment, noticing that it exuded a similar musty scent as her dress._

_Tia,_

_ If this letter finds you, then it must mean that you have survived your adventure in the __Ancient__Cave__.  My congratulations to you!  Do not ask me how it is that I know of this journey you undertook.  I will admit to this.  I did not read the letter the elf sent to you.  Omniscience is an odd thing at the best of times.  But I digress.  You have likely noticed my absence by now.  Please forgive me.  I am impetuous, even though I am old.  I am, however, in no trouble.  I am simply being where fate demands that I must be.  Please try to understand.  (And I resent your thinking I had met my demise while you were away!  I'm not that old!)  I leave you my birds to love and care for.  If you choose to accept them, I promise you, they will be a constant source of joy and adventure for you...right here in Elcid.  They are good traveling companions, I might add, if the horizon beckons to you.  Please keep them in my memory.  And keep your eyes open.  I might well return…one day…when the time is right.  Only fate, as the scientist is fond of saying, knows for certain._

_Yours,_

_ Thom_

_PS:  No matter what anyone tells you abut your strength, always remember that you were able to overcome the greatest weakness within yourself.  That is a measure of character of which few, if any people can boast, even the great hero of __Doom__Island__, Maxim.  I have enjoyed knowing you.  You are, as I imagine many people tell you, an intelligent, sweet young woman with a pure heart.  What is more, however, (and do remember this) your internal strength surpasses that of many who are more powerful in body.  Never forget that in your own way, you are strong._

When she finished reading the letter, Tia clasped it to her chest.  _How odd, she thought.  _It was as if he knew everything that transpired while I was away…  _Even as her mind pondered the mystery, tears of mingled joy and sorrow streamed down her cheeks._

{****}

            Maxim and Selan were received with great fanfare in Parcelyte.  People regarded their return from the dead as no less of a feat than defeating the Sinistrals.  And though Maxim and Selan protested that they lived only through the efforts of their friends, they were immortalized in countless stories as the "reborn lovers."  When they managed to get away from the prying public eye, Maxim and Selan spent many quiet hours together with their son Jeros.  Jeros squealed with happiness the first time Selan's aunt put him into his mother's arms.  Even Guy, who was freeloading with Selan and Maxim in Parcelyte for a while, could not dim the couple's happiness.  Each day they found new marvels to bring tears to their eyes and new ways to express their tenderness for one another.  Guy remained with Maxim and Selan for several months after their return from the Ancient Cave.  Though he claimed to be looking for a job, both Maxim and Selan knew well that their friend was training for his duel with Dekar which would settle once and for all who the strongest man in the world was.  Neither Maxim nor Selan minded Guy's presence however.  He was a cheerful reminder that not every blooming flower was cause for weeping, however jubilant. 

            Dekar remained in Dankirk, working as an elite guardsman for the king and training as a swordsmaster in his spare time.  He aspired to become a teacher and pass on the lore of the strongest man in the world, including his famed Blast Master attack.  His fellow guards at Dankirk castle noticed a change in the warrior after his return.  Never before was he one to ponder deep questions.  Now, however, his eyes would become distant.  If he were pestered about it, as he invariably was by inconsiderate guards, he would occasionally speak chilling truths regarding various meanings of life.  However, on the surface at least, he wore a façade of shallowness that based merit on strength.  When his fellow soldiers would visit houses of ill repute, Dekar would deign to accompany them.  It was often joked, perhaps with more accuracy than these young men realized, that the strongest man in the world was pining away for a woman.

            Lexis Shaia astounded the members of his elite laboratory with ten full pages of varying theories regarding the strange nature of the Ancient Cave. He declared that exploration of this natural wonder was a higher priority than tinkering with impossible machinery.  To this acclamation, much grumbling followed, particularly the mention that the laboratory was a scientific organization, not a bureau of archaeology.  Lexis was undeterred, however, and presented several new studies in reality, dimensions, and magic as a science that could be undergone by study of his notes alone.  And, the scientist added, the machines they were developing could be tested in the Ancient Cave, a splendid laboratory even stranger than the Shaia cave.  His fellow scientists grudgingly agreed to read over his notes.  Once they did so, a strange fervor overcame the lab to see the cave and all the wonders that Lexis had written about, including the strange phenomena of shifting space and vanishing stairs.  Lexis took a team of sixteen scientists with him on a preliminary expedition of the cave.  They all came equipped with notebooks and the like so they could determine which theories of the cave they would test first.  

            When the scientists arrived at the Ancient Cave, the Cave Corpse looked as if he would keel over and die from shock.  "That will be…thirty gold for each of you…that's one hundred and twenty gold per party…that makes…"  He scratched at his head, trying to do the math in his head.

            "Four hundred and eighty gold," Lexis said quickly.

            The Cave Corpse goggled at the scientist as he held out the gold.  "Weren't you were before?  Yes, I've seen you!"  The Cave Corpse glared at Lexis.  "You came in with that girl, didn't you!  What are you trying to do here?  Is this an investigation of sorts?"  He looked angry and suspicious.

            "Calm yourself, sir," Lexis advised him.  "This is an investigation, but as you can see…"  He added another twenty gold pieces to the considerable stack in his hand, "…you are the recipient of the profit."  Despite his obvious reservations, the Cave Corpse snatched the gold greedily.  "This investigation is of a purely scientific nature," Lexis said.  "I assure you, you will be well-paid in each case."

            "Science… this cave?"  The Cave Corpse laughed.  "G'haw!  Suit yourselves, you young whippersnappers!  But I warn you!  This cave is beyond magic!  It is beyond science!  It is-"  

            Lexis entered the warp tile before he could hear the rest of what the old man had to say.  As he expected, the cave proved to be an ideal ground for developing his theories and formulating new ones.  During this trip down, Lexis even managed to isolate the components of Providence so he and his party did not have to worry in times when the orb could not be found.  Lexis's entire team of scientists was impressed with the strange nature of the cave.  Nightly discussions endured well into daily marches with none of the customary boredom that usually surrounded experimentation.  While on the thirtieth floor, Lexis ran into M'hana.  The thief, he noticed, no longer sported a hag's face, but appeared as young as Tia herself.  She wore a shiny new cook pot on her head, and her eyes glinted with dedication bordering on the fanatical.  When she saw Lexis, M'hana grinned.  "It's nice to see that this cave called someone back," she remarked.  "How's the elf?" she asked flippantly.

            Lexis smiled and made a note at the top of his diagram which illustrated how the various floors of the cave might be connected to one another.  "He's wandering," Lexis replied.  "What are you doing in here after we warped you out?"

            "Feh!  It should be obvious to you, Mister Scientist," M'hana said with a smirk.  "When we were on the one hundredth floor, all the Iris treasures disappeared.  I guess it was the fault of that woman who ruined my old helmet.  Anyhow, I figured that I might as well look around down here and see if the treasures made it back to their chests."

            Suddenly inspired, Lexis flipped to the very back of the ponderous tome he carried and scribbled a note.  _The nature of Iris.  If she were ever brought back together and then destroyed, what would happen to the Iris treasures that restore her?_

"And," M'hana added with a little giddy laugh, "my instinct was right!  Lookit!"  She held the Iris sword under Lexis's nose.  "How's that for intuition?"

            "M..most impressive," Lexis said, pushing the sword away and wiping at his brow.  "Good luck to you in finding the other treasures," he said by way of parting.

            "Thanks," M'hana said.  "Say…" she called after him.  "You wouldn't happen to  have any Iris treasures on you, would you?"

            "No, of course not," Lexis said over his shoulder.  "We are investigating the spacial properties of this dungeon.  We cannot get weighed down with a bunch of useless junk."

            M'hana tossed her head.  "Your choice.  Just thought I'd ask.  Good luck to you too, figuring out the whatever you said it was," the thief called before disappearing into the shadows.

            While Lexis and M'hana sought their fortunes in the moldering passages of the Ancient Cave, Artea roamed the forests and wild areas of the overworld.  A peculiar melancholy had seized the elf even though he had resurrected Maxim and Selan without losing any of their other companions.  He pondered the meaning of his discontent, even felt guilty about it for a brief period.  One day, seated in a tall oak tree overlooking a rippling sea of green leaves, the answer came to him.  He was experiencing sorrow for Eserikto, the most exquisite forest he knew of in the world and perhaps the one place in the world in which he could not go.  Once he knew the cause of the gaping hole inside of him, the elf leaned his head against the bark of the oak, remembering and grieving.  


	19. Reflections of the Absolute

Chapter Nineteen:  Reflections of the Absolute

            They say that the old cannot remember due to the sheer weight of memories that they have accumulated over the years.  Perhaps the very elderly become hunched over because of all these strange images and half images, some dim and others bright, that fill their heads.  I am ancient beyond reckoning, and, as thus, I am uncertain of the sequence of my memories.  Is there an order to them?  Does it really matter?  I sit in this chamber, day after day, eon upon eon, staring at nothing.  Though my eyes are open much of the time, I could not tell you what the chamber looked like even if I wanted to. That is how accustomed to it I have become.  Yet somehow I remember what lay just beyond my dais.  It was a primordial labyrinth of craggy rocks, beset with a perpetual downpour of red lightning that illumined the heavens with hellish light. 

One day, I remember gathering the darkness unto myself, the pooled energy of countless ages.  I split this darkness four ways.  From it, my children were born.  These were the first beings to call me 'Father', though at that time I did not understand why they did so.  

Why are these memories returning to the recesses of my sluggish mind?  I know by a strange internal clarity that they are fact and not fantasy.  If that is the case, then where are my children now?  To where have they strayed?  And why have they left me, their father, looking endlessly into a realm of dreams that I cannot comprehend or discern from reality?  Is my life so vast, so encompassing that I cannot determine what was real and what was not?

            They say that when a man becomes a father, his entire identity is lost to the winds of time.  _All of his efforts, all of his thoughts center upon his brood.  Such was my fate.  Now I am an old man, ancient one might say.  My children are grown, my nest is empty.  The silence is thick where once I heard laughter, where once I shared small joys and triumphs.  Even sorrows, which, though they matched my children in size, seemed to encompass the entire universe.  Now, alone again, I remember what was.  Or do I?  I seem to remember our first meeting, being called All-father and Absolute.  These are mere words, however.  What significance could they possibly bear to me? _

Yet now I begin to remember…  I gather dim snatches from my mind, glimpses of faces in fading smoke, in the ripples on the water, in dull mirrors…  I recall smashing the mountains, softening the face of the land as if it were clay.  I stood mightier than the hills, taller than the clouds.  I did not move from my throne, yet I accomplished all of these things. And when I chanced to clench my fists at the confusing transformation going on below me, I felt the stickiness of blood upon my hands.  

The realm beneath me changed as time went on.  Green things grew and living beings began to evolve, to thrive.  My children looked on as the process of Creation went on…  They were remnants, however, the memories of Chaos.  They feared the changes that were taking place.  I remember the hatred smoldering in their eyes…

            These memories are growing stronger.  I was Creator and Father.  I was All-father and Absolute.  Somehow I recall a day in which Chaos despaired of Creation and went into the midst of it to disrupt it.  Creation was my final child.  And it grieved me to see my children quarreling amongst one another.  Yet I could no sooner stop what was happening than move from this place.  Age and memory weighed heavy on me.  Though I had worked miracles that earned me my names Absolute and All father, I had no idea how I had done it.  All the effort was intuitive, one might say.  Creation fought my four Dark Children in a terrible clash that echoed in my mind and shook the pillars of the universe.  Though blind, I could sense the outcome of the battle!  I knew of the deaths of my children!  Creation, my youngest child, had quelled the four Dark Children, the sons and daughter of Chaos.  Though the Dark Children had begun the battles with Creation, I grieved for them.  I was their father, as well as that of Creation.  How I remember the first time I buried them…  I laid them low in a magnificent palace far beneath the earth.  How strange that I buried the Dark Children in the heart of Creation.  In their tombs, I placed glittering jewels and guardians to watch their sleep.  I hoped that Creation and the Dark Children would finally reconcile.  However, the Dark Children were restless, even after they had perished.  Their bodies moldered and decayed.  When their bones, the seat of their power, were laid bare, darkness flooded the halls of their sepulcher.  Restless, Chaos sought to rise again, using my children.  I, however, was Father.  When my children returned to me, reeking of grave soil, I only rejoiced and embraced them.  

Alack for the day!  Once again Chaos pitted itself against Creation.  My sweet children were bent on their purpose.  Creation again quelled them.  Perpetual loss had a numbing effect and again, I laid them low in the marble vault.  Once more, however, Chaos returned their bodies to life, through subtle craft in the affairs of men, who are the children of Creation.  

            Yet why are the tides of memory now returning when they have so long receded?  I have no answer to my question, only exasperation and wonder.  The conflict has left me perpetually raw inside. Such is the gamble that Fathers make when they love all of their children.  This pain is sharp…  

Ah yes, I see.  Chaos was defeated again, this time in my children's own tomb.  Wretched Chaos…  My poor, beloved Dark Children have fallen.  I know that soon, darkness will stalk the halls of their resting place, seeking agents of Creation to restore their bodies…  It has been this way for time immemorial…

            The memories fade now, withering like roses, washing away like smeared colors…  I seem to recall other names now…names that were once mine…names of other people.  Yet this cannot be…  I am father and no one else, or am I?  Somehow in the fashion in which I humbled the mountains, I walked as a stooped old man…wandering across the world with birds that carried messages…  Ah yes.  The air is the new sea.  And Tia…  The name sings sweetly on my tongue.  Was she one of my children?  

            The might of the universe is all around…just past the dais I have made my perch above the world claimed by Creation.  Yet the world of my own memories commands my eyes.  There are so many of them…  How many are real?  

            Clarity again…  The Dark Children have again drowned in their ambition to repossess the earth.  My precious children…  Your actions were shameful to me, even atrocious.  But I am your Father.  Until you rise again, as you have for time immemorial, I shall guard your tomb, the most ancient of caves, the most perfect of dungeons, a maze of treasures that cannot be stolen…  Until that time, sleep on, my precious children…my Dark Ones…my Sinistrals.

Fin.  

{**********************************************************************************************************}

I wanted this last chapter to stand out, which is why I deviated from my third person narration.  I hope that this stream of consciousness style of writing brings out Arek the Absolute's eternal nature while keeping him a mysterious figure…  This is the last chapter of the Ancient Cave, but I am entertaining thoughts of a sequel, which is why I kept the ending _much looser than I would have otherwise._

Thank you everyone for reading my fic.

A thousand thanks to my reviewers.  Your feedback (especially your encouragement) is invaluable to me.

Special thanks to Doc who has been with me from the very beginning.  Gomen ne, C.R. Carter-san.  I'm still thinking of you as Doc.  (And I will probably continue to for a while…my ex-boyfriend was a Carter…'nuff said.)


End file.
